NASA’s Viking 1 lander achieved the first successful soft landing on Mars on 20 July 1976. It touched down in Chryse Planitia while its companion, Viking 2, later landed in Utopia Planitia.
Viking 1 carried cameras, a weather station, a seismometer, and instruments for analyzing Martian soil. Its biology experiments searched for signs of microbial activity, but the results were not accepted as definitive evidence of life. The lander also transmitted the first surface photographs from Mars.
The Viking mission combined two orbiters and two landers, making it one of the most ambitious planetary programs of its era. Mars 3 achieved a soft landing in 1971 but stopped transmitting after only a short time, so Viking 1 is generally credited with the first successful, sustained landing and surface operation.