# Viking 1's Historic Mars Landing: Six Years of Discovery
Published: January 21, 2026
Duration: 1:45
# This is your Astronomy Tonight podcast.
Good evening, stargazers! Welcome back to another cosmic journey through history. Today, January 21st, marks a particularly thrilling anniversary in the annals of space exploration.
On this date in 1976, NASA's Viking 1 spacecraft made its historic soft landing on Mars, becoming the first spacecraft to successfully touch down on the Red Planet and transmit data back to Earth. But here's where it gets *really* exciting—this wasn't just a quick hello and goodbye. Viking 1 went on to become the longest-operating Mars lander of its time, functioning for over six years on th...
Good evening, stargazers! Welcome back to another cosmic journey through history. Today, January 21st, marks a particularly thrilling anniversary in the annals of space exploration.
On this date in 1976, NASA's Viking 1 spacecraft made its historic soft landing on Mars, becoming the first spacecraft to successfully touch down on the Red Planet and transmit data back to Earth. But here's where it gets *really* exciting—this wasn't just a quick hello and goodbye. Viking 1 went on to become the longest-operating Mars lander of its time, functioning for over six years on th...