Launch of Viking 2

Viking 2 was the second of two NASA missions to Mars, each consisting of an orbiter and a lander, launched in 1975 on Titan III-Centaur rockets. After entering Mars orbit, the lander separated and touched down in the plains of Utopia Planitia in the northern hemisphere in September 1976. Like Viking 1, it took photographs of a rock-strewn red landscape and measured the weather, finding frost on the ground in winter. Its experiments to detect life in the soil gave puzzling results that most scientists interpret as chemical, not biological, reactions. The orbiter mapped most of the planet's surface in detail, and the Viking images remained the standard maps of Mars for many years.

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