Forty years ago, scientists and engineers at Lockheed Martin in Jefferson County helped accomplish the impossible: landing a spacecraft on Mars.
That first mission and its sisters, Viking I and II, pioneered technology that allowed other missions to the red planet and paved the way for Lockheed Martin to become NASA’s most experienced spacecraft provider.
“The whole world saw us do it. The company suddenly had a very, very strong reputation for doing the almost impossible,” said Ben Clark, original Viking team member, who still works at Lockheed Martin in Jefferson County. “As a result of that, over the next couple years we started winning a lot of contracts.”
But the Viking scientists didn’t stroll into the office of what was then known as Martin Marietta, on the morning of July 20, 1976, with a swagger in their step, confident that the craft they had built would successfully land and that the instruments it carried would function.
“We didn’t know if it would even work, because no one had ever landed on Mars,” Clark said, noting that the Russians had been trying, but without success. This was also a time when rockets often failed during launches. In fact, NASA launched both Viking I and II the summer before — just in case one belly-flopped.
The team of scientists faced a lot of challenges. The lander had to manage its descent because there was a 20-minute communication delay between the spacecraft and scientists. The spacecraft was moving at high speeds in an atmosphere very different from Earth’s. No one knew what the surface would be like. At the time, they thought it was spongy.
“Thatap kind of what you have to do when you’re designing spacecraft,” Clark said. “You hope you understood all of the challenges. The thing is, there were about a dozen of them.”
A parachute slowed the spacecraft, although it was still traveling faster than the speed of sound, and a propulsion system brought it down to 0 mph. That system also had to be designed to fend off any high-wind storms.
Clark said there were a few “fantastics” thrown about — although no high-fives, because they didn’t exist at the time — once the first picture came through revealing sand and rocks. But the members of the crew immediately got back to work. They expected the craft to last only 90 days, so they were working around the clock and planning everything down to the minute.
“We didn’t have time to stop and sit and reflect on the fact we were making history,” Clark said
Guy Beutelschies, director of Lockheed Martin’s interplanetary missions, said it’s easy to take for granted the achievements of those engineers and scientists, including Clark, especially considering the technological limitations they had. He said today’s cellphone processors could probably do more than the computers they were working with.
“Looking back 40 years ago, it was certainly a monumental achievement to put the first lander on Mars,” Beutelschies said. “And that kicked into motion all of the interplanetary mission we’ve done now.”
Lockheed Martin has been involved with every NASA mission to Mars, building the Atlas launch rockets used before Viking and making orbiters and landers as well as the aeroshield for rovers. Beutelschies said present-day missions still use some of the techniques and data collected as Viking I and II were prepared for launch. Many of the instruments and later spacecraft were built in the same cleanrooms in Waterton Canyon.
“We are truly standing on their shoulders,” Beutelschies said.
And there is still much more work to be done. Lockheed Martin is involved in several missions, including the that around Jupiter and OSIRIS-REx, which will bring samples from an asteroid back to Earth. The company is also part of the InSight lander, NASA’s next mission to Mars in May 2018, and the Mars 2020 rover.
“A lot of people don’t realize how much of NASA’s interplanetary systems are done right here in Colorado,” Beutelschies said.
Lockheed Martin is also the prime contractor to build the Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle that will allow humans to explore deep space. The company is proposing to NASA the creation of a base camp on one of Mars’ moons as part of a later Orion mission.
Beutelschies said there is a lot to still learn from Mars. The planet used to have an atmosphere more similar to Earth’s with lakes and oceans, but now it looks very different. What happened? There is still some water on the planet. Did life ever evolve there? Are there forms of life there now?
Clark, who still works with Lockheed Martin as the chief scientist of Advanced Planetary Studies, repeated a similar sentiment.
“Itap kind of like we’ve done the Louisiana Purchase,” Clark said, “but we haven’t done the Lewis and Clark thing yet.”