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Viking's Annual Costs

Chart of Viking Mars mission costs per fiscal year.

Annual spending on Viking, by fiscal year. The two spacecraft launched in 1975 and began Mars surface operations in the summer of 1976. "1976 TQ" is a special transition quarter, a product of a one-time restructuring of the U.S. budgeting process. Source: Planetary Science Budget Dataset, accessible on Google Sheets or downloadable as an Excel file.

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