by Joseph B.
The recent "soft landing" of the Viking
Rover, brought back memories dating to the mid-1970s, of another Viking lander
that was the first to crash land on the planet, gather photographic and
scientific data and relay that information back to earth. Lockheed Electronics,
Information Technology Division, in Plainfield, New Jersey, supplied the tape
recorder. The recorder would survive the Earth-Mars transitory flight and hard
landing on the planet’s surface and store the data being taken by the many payload
instruments. Further, upon command from the lander's brain, the tape
recorder would play and transmit this data back for use by scientific teams on
earth.
In order to crash land a payload on the surface of
Mars and
maintain the biological integrity of the planet, all instruments on the lander
needed to be "sterilized." The payload components needed to survive
numerous heat cycles of sterilization to eliminate any earth-generated
microbes. There were several cycles of exposure of the lander to temperatures
in excess of 140 degrees Centigrade or 284 degrees Fahrenheit.
Think about that for a few seconds! When was the last
time you put a magnetic tape recorder in your oven at 284 degrees and were able
to retrieve it in some recognizable and usable form?
This description is a gross oversimplification of the
efforts that went into this project. Many sleepless nights and days of
sacrifice were involved. In the end, it proved well worth it.
