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Viking 2 Back Shell | Viking 2 Heat Shield | Viking 2 Lander |
NASA's Viking Lander 2 landed on Mars on Sept. 3, 1976, in Utopia
Planitia. The lander, which has a diameter of about 3 meters (10 feet),
has been precisely located in this image from the High Resolution Imaging
Science Experiment on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Also, likely
locations have been found for the heat shield and back shell. The lander
location has been confirmed by overlaying the lander-derived topographic
contours on the high-resolution camera's image, which provides an
excellent match. Viking Lander 2 was one element of an ambitious mission
to study Mars, with a four-spacecraft flotilla consisting of two orbiters
and two landers. Four cutouts from this image are shown. The first is an
overview showing the relative locations of the lander and candidate back
shell and heat shield, and the others are enlargements of each of these
components. Large boulders, dunes, and other features visible in Viking
Lander 2 images can be located in the high-resolution camera's image. The
polygonal pattern of the surface is typical at these latitudes and may be
due to the presence of deep subsurface ice.
As chance would have it, this image is blurred in some places due to the
abrupt motion associated with the restart of the orbiter's high-gain
antenna tracking during the very short image exposure. This is the first
time after acquiring hundreds of pictures that a High Resolution Imaging
Science Experiment image has been unintentionally smeared; overall
performance has been excellent.
A prime motivation for early viewing of the Viking sites is to calibrate
imagery taken from orbit with the data previously acquired by the landers.
In particular, determining what sizes of rocks can be seen from Mars
Reconnaissance Orbiter aids the interpretation of data now being taken to
characterize sites for future landers, such as the Phoenix Mars Lander
mission to be launched in 2007.
Images from the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment and additional
information about the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter are available online
at: http://www.nasa.gov/mro or http://HiRISE.lpl.arizona.edu.
For information about NASA and agency programs on the Web, http://www.nasa.gov.
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute
of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter for
NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Lockheed Martin Space
Systems is the prime contractor for the project and built the spacecraft.
The High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment camera was built by Ball
Aerospace Corporation and is operated by the University of Arizona.