The Viking Mars Mission

By The Viking Mars Missions Education and Preservation Project

Dedicated to the men and women of Viking and their families.

Viking was the first successful landed Mars mission.  It launched in 1975, and landed in 1976. But it began much earlier... The Viking Mars Missions Education & Preservation Project brings you the Viking story. This first release of the exhibit will guide you through the mission using the original Bulletins from the mission, engineering and planning documents, and captions from interviews with the Vikings themselves. We will share the mission from beginning to end with planning, engineering and science content, and personal insights from the viewpoints of more than 80 Viking Team Members we have interviewed. We will continue to add new content over the next several months, as we curate our extensive library.                         Click anywhere on navigation bar at the bottom of the page to go to specific documents or Mission Phases, and view entire documents, scroll, or zoom, by clicking on each content item.

The January 22-24, 1968 AAIA Meeting Lunar Orbiter Mission Design Report The January 22-24, 1968 AAIA Meeting Lunar Orbiter Mission Design Report, AIAA, 1968-01, From the collection of: The Viking Mars Missions Education and Preservation Project
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Click on this document to view all pages. Each page can be expanded and scrolled in order to read the detailed content and view diagrams at a larger scale.

Viking Overview booklet created by Martin Marietta (1972) by Martin MariettaThe Viking Mars Missions Education and Preservation Project

Planning

Every Missions begin with ideation and planning even before the Project or Program Office is formed and continue through numerous Phases. At the highest level these are Pre Launch Planning, Mission Flight Operations, and Primary Mission during which the scientific objectives are being met. Scientific primary objectives however the drivers for missions, and help to define the mission design and plan. These science objectives can begin any time after launch and continue through past primary mission into extended missions. For the purposes of understanding Viking at a high level, this section will discuss and share content from the mission science objectives and high level plan, up to the pre-launch design engineering phase. During this Planning phase, proposals are made to funding sources (in the case of Viking, government funds), and a primary Contractor is selected, which for Viking included choosing the NASA Office that would manage the project, NASA Langley Research Center, and selecting primary contractor, Martin Marietta and a few secondary vendors for the science instrument development. For Viking, selecting the Project Office location was critical, as the mission required many firsts, and equally many unknowns. In the words of Mission Designer Norman Crabill, Viking was "ambitious and audacious", but the team rose to the occasion, met obstacles head on, took calculated risks, and succeeded because of the phenomenal team members and the strong leadership of Jim Martin. NASA Langley was chosen in large part because of their expertise and success leading the Lunar Orbiter missions, which included the important first of Site Selection for the upcoming Apollo missions. Their exceptional performance and team experience and skill made them the choice team to lead the Viking mission. Other key elements of the mission were assigned to the experts at Jet Propulsion Laboratory, because of their extensive experience designing and building Orbiters and their exemplary performance in Mission Operations. Then began the creation of oversight teams for each major element: Mission Design and Planning, Science Objectives, Engineering, Mission Operations, and Integration. These documents cover the early objectives of the mission as they were communicated to the public to help people understand how the Viking mission would proceed. 

NASA Facts Educational Bulletin NASA Facts Educational Bulletin, NASA, From the collection of: The Viking Mars Missions Education and Preservation Project
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Viking Mars Missions' Lander and System Integration proposal by Martin Marietta 1969. Viking Mars Missions' Lander and System Integration proposal by Martin Marietta 1969. (1969-04) by Martin MariettaThe Viking Mars Missions Education and Preservation Project