Viking: lander science equipment - 2.

The soil collector carried aboard the Viking Mars Lander and the instruments and procedures that will be used to investigate samples of the surface soil of Mars are described. The collector, stored in a collapsed, coiled configuration during flight, deploys to form a rigid arm capable of collecting materials from 90 cm to 3 m from the Lander itself within an azimuth arc of 120 deg. Screens limit the passage of particles larger than 1 mm. Soil samples delivered to the bio-lab will be subjected to pyrolytic release, labelled release, and gas exchange tests to detect the presence of metabolic products or of organic compounds indicative of the present or past existence of life. The GCMS, which is capable of performing six organic tests and up to 60 atmospheric analyses, will be used to search for compounds in the surface soil. Inorganic chemical analyses will be performed by an X-ray fluorescence spectrometer.