Viking 2 landed on Mars and sent back images

On September 3, 1976, NASA’s Viking 2 lander separated from its orbiter and dropped through the thin Martian atmosphere, setting down safely on Utopia Planitia, a broad northern plain near 48 degrees N. It was the second American craft to land intact on Mars, following its twin, Viking 1, by a few weeks.

Minutes after touchdown, the lander began returning photographs, eventually sweeping a panorama across a rust-colored field of boulders and, later in the mission, capturing a thin coat of morning frost on the rocks.

Viking 2 carried instruments to sniff the atmosphere, study the soil, and run biology experiments searching for signs of life. Those experiments produced inconclusive results. The hardy lander kept working for more than three Earth years, far beyond its planned lifetime, returning a steady stream of images and weather data from the surface.