Which was the first mars lander designed by NASA?
the first Viking lander. The craft successfully landed on July 20, 1976. There were four spacecraft in the project: two orbiters and two landers. There was a lot of anxiety because the Soviet Union had previously tried four times to land a spacecraft on Mars and all four had failed. The first image looked like this: The Langley Research Center managed Viking for NASA. JPL built the two Viking orbiters and provided both the Deep Space Network for tracking and the Mission Operations Center in California. Martin-Marietta was the prime contractor for the twin landers. I was especially thrilled because I had worked for NASA during much of the Apollo program (1966 to 1971) in the Space Enviromental Simulation Center across the street from Mission Control at the Houston Manned Spacecraft Center. I had some involvement from the end of the Mercury and start of the Gemini Program and have been an avid follower of news ever since.
