The Infamous Viking Missions of the 1970s
To fully understand what Viking may have missed and what it really told us
about the Mars surface, we'll need to look more closely at the experiments done.
There were two missions, Viking 1 and Viking 2, leaving Cape Canaveral, FL on August and September, in 1975. Each consisted of an orbiter and a lander. The orbiters studied the Mars atmosphere and surveyed the land. It also relayed information between Earth and Mars and found a suitable site for the landers. All equipment worked as designed.
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The two landers set down on near opposite sides of Mars. Each did similar experiments on the surface. The most important experiments to search for life were:
- Carbon Assimilation.
- Release Experiment.
- Gas Exchange Experiment.
- Mass spectrometer Measurements.
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All of these experiments involved digging up a piece of soil
and performing controlled bio-chemical experiments on the sample.
The sample came from a spot just a few meters from
the lander sight, using an extending arm and working a small shovel.
But the sample was no more than a few inches deep. This is an important point.