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The Viking Computer Facility capability was extended to include Real Time Downlink processing (described at http://www.atmos.washington.edu/~mars/#viking) from Lander 1, to support reconditioning of Lander 1 batteries by the JPL staff on Mars. It is described in the above and following panels, and allowed Tillman to propose and develop the first ``Live from Mars'' exhibit at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, Washington, D.C. This permanent exhibit, now ``The Viking view of Mars'', is in its 20th year in the museum's Planetary Gallery.
This figure illustrates the NASA Deep Space Network, DSN, used for all planetary missions. To continue Viking Lander operations after the JPL computer handling Viking spacecraft data was decommissioned, the Mission Operations software suite was converted from IBM Assembly Language to Fortran for Tillman's UW Viking Computer Facility. This allowed meteorology science data to be extracted and atmospheric pressure from the engineering data stream. When it was decided to continue lander engineering operations, we extracted and processed engineering data for NASA JPL Mission Operations staff and UW, enabling continued Mission Operations..)
Display version at real_time.html