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Viking Mars lander first generation original photos
450,00 €
Vintage, real time first released photograph from the Viking mars landing in 1976, from the JPL -mission control center and from the personal collection of KSC launch Director Walt Kapryan. (INV18112017A1000).
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Viking 1 & 2
Nasa probes launched August 20, 1975 and September 9, 1975 with successfull landing on MARS
The Viking program is a NASA space program that placed the first American spacecraft on Martian soil. Within the framework of this program, two identical space probes, Viking 1 and Viking 2, were launched in 1974 one month apart. Each of these missions included a spacecraft intended to orbit the planet and a module that would land on the ground and conduct investigations while remaining stationary. The scientific objectives were to produce high-resolution images of the planet's surface, determine the structure and composition of the atmosphere and eventually identify the presence of life on Mars.
The Viking program remains to date the most ambitious and expensive of the missions sent to Mars with a budget of US$3.8 billion (updated to 2014). The various modules that make up the Viking program have been running for 1 to 6 years. Viking space probes discovered that many geological formations on the surface of Mars had been formed by the action of water. On the other hand, despite the use of sophisticated analytical instruments, it was not possible to determine whether life forms were present in the Martian soil.
Walter Kapryan
Deputy Director of Launch Operations Walter Kapryan
Kapryan served as Launch Operations director during the Apollo and Skylab Programs. He also supported the early years of the Space Shuttle Program with Lockheed Space Operations Co.
After the NACA became NASA in 1958, the fledgling space agency's Space Task Group was formed at Langley. Their primary mission was to develop a program to put an American in space.
Kapryan joined the Space Task Group in March 1959 and was appointed project engineer for the Mercury Redstone 1 (MR 1) spacecraft and moved to Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in I960.
MR 1 was to be the first unpiloted, sub-orbital test flight of the spacecraft that would put the first American in space. Kapryan also was in the Cape's Launch Pad 5 blockhouse as a project engineer when Alan Shepard was launched atop a Mercury Redstone on May 5, 1961.
Kapryan continued supporting Project Mercury until 1963. That year, he established and led the Manned Spacecraft Center's Gemini Program Office at Kennedy. During the early phases of the Gemini Program, Kapryan was responsible for planning of spacecraft testing. He also helped determine requirements for Gemini capsule checkout equipment to be located at Kennedy. He went on to participate in the preparation and countdown of all 10 piloted Gemini flights.
Kapryan then served as assistant Apollo Spacecraft Program manager at Kennedy representing the Manned Spacecraft Center, assuring coordination between the two centers for spacecraft operations. He later was appointed deputy to Rocco Petrone, who was director of Launch Operations.
At Kennedy, the Apollo Program not only involved test flights of the spacecraft, as well as the Saturn 1B and Saturn V boosters, but development and construction of the massive infrastructure including the Vehicle Assembly Bulling, Launch Control Center and Launch Pads 39A and B.
After supporting Petrone with the early Apollo launches, Kapryan assumed the position of director of Launch Operations with Apollo 12 in November 1969. He served in that role through Skylab and the 1975 lift off of the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project (ASTP) mission.
Following Apollo, Kapryan was Kennedy's first director of Space Shuttle Operations.