{"id":586131,"date":"2026-08-07T16:00:14","date_gmt":"2026-08-07T16:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/586131\/"},"modified":"2026-08-07T16:00:14","modified_gmt":"2026-08-07T16:00:14","slug":"on-this-day-in-space-aug-7-1980-nasas-viking-1-mars-orbiter-shuts-down-4-years-into-a-90-day-mission","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/586131\/","title":{"rendered":"On this day in space! Aug. 7, 1980: NASA’s Viking 1 Mars orbiter shuts down 4 years into a 90-day mission"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Aug. 7, 1980, NASA’s Viking 1<\/a> spacecraft ended its epic and historic mission on the Red Planet.<\/p>\n

Viking 1 was the first spacecraft to successfully land on Mars<\/a>. It was one of two Viking missions NASA launched in 1975 to go look for evidence of life on Mars<\/a>. Each of the Viking missions were composed of an orbiter and a lander. Viking 1’s orbiter took photos of the Martian surface that helped NASA decide where to drop the lander.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

After four years of orbiting Mars<\/a>, the orbiter ran out of attitude-control propellant, so NASA had to shut it down. The lander continued its scientific observations for another three years before it lost contact with NASA<\/a> in 1983.<\/p>\n

Image 1 of 2<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

A photo of NASA’s Viking 1 Mars orbiter with its Mars lander attached in a landing capsule.<\/p>\n

(Image credit: NASA)<\/p>\n

\"This<\/p>\n

This NASA graphic shows the different parts of the Viking 1 Mars Orbiter.<\/p>\n

(Image credit: NASA)<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

\"This<\/p>\n

Why it mattered<\/p>\n

NASA’s Viking 1 mission is most well-known for making the first truly successful landing on Mars, but the mission was more than just a huge lander. Viking 1 actually consisted of two spacecraft, the Viking 1 Lander and the Viking 1 Orbiter. The two spacecraft rode to Mars together, with the lander separating from the orbiter ahead of its landing on the Red Planet.<\/p>\n

In fact, NASA sent FOUR Viking spacecraft to Mars in total. The Viking 2 mission<\/a> also carried both a Lander and Orbiter. But the Viking 1 probes were the first of that wave. The two orbiters were based on NASA’s general Mariner 9<\/a> spacecraft bus, but more sophisticated. They carried three primary instrument suites: A two-camera imaging system; infrared spectrometer for water vapor mapping; and an infrared radiometer for thermal mapping.<\/p>\n

You may like<\/p>\n

The Viking missions were only planned to last 90 days, but both the lander and orbiter lasted years beyond their design lifetime. The Viking 1 Orbiter studied Mars for four years, orbiting the planet 1,488 times before shutting down on orbit 1,489 on Aug. 7, 1980.<\/p>\n

The Viking 1 and Viking 2 Orbiters captured a combined 52,663 high-resolution photos of Mars, mapping about 97% of its surface with a resolution of about 984 feet (300 meters). They also snapped photos of Mars’ two moons, Phobos<\/a> and Deimos<\/a>, in great detail, far surpassing what NASA achieved with the Mariner 9 Mars orbiter in 1971.<\/p>\n

\"Space\"<\/p>\n

Want more space history? Check out our full On This Day In Space Story archive<\/a> and watch our On This Day In Space videos on YouTube<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On Aug. 7, 1980, NASA’s Viking 1 spacecraft ended its epic and historic mission on the Red Planet.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":586132,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[61,60,82],"class_list":["post-586131","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/586131","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=586131"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/586131\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/586132"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=586131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=586131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=586131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}