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The Viking program consisted of a pair of American space probes sent to Mars, Viking 1 and Viking 2. Each spacecraft was composed of two main parts: an orbiter designed to photograph the surface of Mars from orbit, and a lander designed to study the planet from the surface. The orbiters also served as communication relays for the landers once they touched down. It was the most expensive and ambitious mission ever sent to Mars, with a total cost of roughly US$1 billion (roughly US$3.8 billion in FY14 dollars).〔(Viking 1 Orbiter: Mission Profile (NASA NSSDC) )〕 It was highly successful and formed most of the body of knowledge about Mars through the late 1990s and early 2000s. The Viking program grew from NASA's earlier, even more ambitious, Voyager Mars program, which was not related to the successful Voyager deep space probes of the late 1970s. Viking 1 was launched on August 20, 1975, and the second craft, Viking 2, was launched on September 9, 1975, both riding atop Titan III-E rockets with Centaur upper stages. Viking 1 entered Mars orbit on June 19, 1976, with Viking 2 following suit on August 7. After orbiting Mars for more than a month and returning images used for landing site selection, the orbiters and landers detached; the landers then entered the Martian atmosphere and soft-landed at the sites that had been chosen. The Viking 1 lander touched down on the surface of Mars on July 20, 1976, and was joined by the Viking 2 lander on September 3. The orbiters continued imaging and performing other scientific operations from orbit while the landers deployed instruments on the surface. ==Science objectives== *Obtain high-resolution images of the Martian surface *Characterize the structure and composition of the atmosphere and surface *Search for evidence of life on Mars 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Viking program」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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