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1993-04-23
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OFFICE OF PUBLIC INFORMATION
JET PROPULSION LABORATORY
CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
PASADENA, CALIF. PHONE (213) 354-5011
Viking engineers at Jet Propulsion Laboratory today
sent
a command to turn off NASA's Viking Orbiter 1 ending the
spacecraft's
four-year mission in Mars orbit.
Kermit Watkins, Viking project manager, said the
orbiter
was shut down because its attitude control gas is expected to
be
depleted before it completes its next orbit of Mars.
"By sending the turn off command," Watkins said,
"instead
of allowing it to occur automatically, we will be sure that
the
spacecraft has been shut down."
Although silent, the spacecraft will continue in
orbit
well beyond the turn of the century to prevent contamination
of
the surface for future missions to Mars.
Viking engineers have been carefully monitoring the
space-
craft since late July in the expectation that it would soon
use the
last of its attitude control gas and be unable to maintain
the
correct orientation. Attitude control gas keeps the
spacecraft's
radio antenna pointed to Earth and the power producing solarpanels
aimed at the Sun.
Viking 1 was launched on Aug. 20, 1975, from Cape
Cana-
veral, Fla. It arrived in Mars orbit on June 19, 1976, and
has
been operating continuously since then.
-more-
-2-
Viking Lander 1 continues to collect scientific
infor-
mation on the surface of Mars. It is programmed to continue
working until December 1994.
The Viking program is managed for NASA's Office of
Space
Science by Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
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