Was the Viking a lunar probe?

Answer 1

No, it was a Martian one. There were actually two Viking probes, both launched in August 1975 and arriving at Mars in June the following year.

Each probe consisted of two parts, an orbital satellite and a lander, which seperated in the Martian orbit, allowing the landers to descend to the Martian surface. Both made landfall in the South-Eastern part of the planet, although they were hundreds of miles apart from each other. The purpose of the mission was for the orbiters to take detailed photographs and radar screenings of the planet's surface that might give an insight into it's geology and history (i.e. whether it may once have had water on it, etc.), whilst the landers were to take photographs of their surroundings and analyse soil and rock samples.

The Viking 2 orbiter functioned up until July '78, when a leak in it's fuel system forced mission control to shut it down. It subsequently crashed onto Mars's surface. The Viking 2 lander functioned up until April 1980, when it had battery failure and ceased to function. The Viking 1 orbiter had to be shut down in August the same year due to depletion of it's altitude control fuel, but remains orbiting the planet in a defunct state and will probably crash-land onto the surface some time in 2019. Most succesful of all was the Viking 1 lander, which had a career of an incredible SIX YEARS until human error caused antenna damage in November 1982. Both landers took some of the best photographs of the Martian surface ever taken, even by today's standards.