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Captured here in this rendering is a Viking lander just before it touched down on the Martian surface. The parachute and upper aeroshell can be seen in the upper left corner of the image. At this stage of the descent, the lander's terminal descent propulsion system (three retro-engines) had slowed the craft down so that velocity at landing was about of 2 mps (7 mph). Seconds after the lander reached the surface it began transmitting images back to the orbiter for relay to Earth.
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