Space research record

Press, 7 September 1976, Page 8

Space research record

NZPA-Reuter Pasadena United States scientists, two spacecraft circling Mars and two landers sitting on the planet’s surface, will this week launch the biggest research programme in the his ton of space exploration Viking IL which landed on the rock-strewn Plain of Utopia just below the north polar cap of Mars on Fridav. will begin its search for living [organisms in the soil of that relatively-damp region. Viking I. sitting on an and rocky depression nearer the Martian equator 6400 kilometres away, will signal back dailv weather reports and other readings. On Saturday the Viking 1 orbiter will begin a slow "walk” across the planet, shifting its orbit slightly to the east each day, until it reaches the Viking II orbiter. During its shifting flight the Viking I orbiter will take dailv pictures of the lesserknown northern hemisphere. When the two orbiters come together, the Viking I vehicle will take over the job of acting as a radio relay station for the Viking II lander down on the ground, and the Viking II orbiter will go on a “walk” of its own. It will set out to photograph the little-known north polar cap. According to Mr Gentry Lee, the Viking mission's planning director, during these "walks” the orbiting vehicles will be brought sweeping down to within 800 kilometres of the surface, twice as close as they have been to Mars in the past. One of the orbiters will also streak by the craterriddled Mars moon, Phobos, so close that the photographs taken in the fly-past will be nothing but a blur.

Fears that the entire mission might have been cut back because of rock damage to Viking II on landing have been put to rest when signals transmitted from the lander back to Earth showed the little, three-legged scientific station was undamaged. The first Viking II pictures indicate that Mars is the same colour all over — orangy-red.