Rank 8 documents Viking 1 — the 883 kg orbiter and 572 kg lander that touched Chryse Planitia on 20 July 1976, becoming the first US spacecraft to operate on the Martian surface. Launched aboard Titan IIIE / Centaur, the Langley and JPL teams carried biology experiments, a seismic package, and weather instruments that transmitted data until 1982. The lander's 360° panoramic camera returned the ochre regolith views that defined public Mars imagery for a generation, while the orbiter mapped the Face on Mars and broader surface geology until 1980. Twin Viking 2 followed weeks later. Heritage Collector renders the lander surface hero, arched FIRST SUCCESSFUL MARS LANDER banner, and Viking patch exactly as the master PNG dictates.