Naked Viking - Viking 3, Museum of Flight, WA

by KJ Swan

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Naked Viking - Viking 3, Museum of Flight, WA

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KJ Swan

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On display before thousands, a naked Viking Lander bears all. Even though it's been stripped of it's cover and some of it's instrumentation, I stood before it and stared.

Two complete versions of this Viking Lander flight capsule can only be seen on the surface of Mars. This amazing, vintage technology was the flight-ready, back-up vehicle if Viking Landing 1 or 2 had failed. No longer "On Call" the Viking Landing 3 retired to The Museum of Flight, Seattle, Washington - thanks to an insightful 11 year old, Rachel Tillman, who insisted her father's project be saved instead of scrapped.

Two robotic landers, Viking 1 and Viking 2, became the first US spacecraft to land and send images and transmit data back from Mars from 1976-1980. This flight-ready standby lander is the only example of a flight qualified Viking Lander on Earth.

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April 1st, 2023

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