An unfired flight-ready spare Rocketdyne RS-2101 Liquid Rocket Engine designed for application on the first spacecraft that successfully landed on the Planet Mars as part of Project Viking. Constructed from Beryllium, Columbium, and stainless steel by North American Rockwell/Rocketdyne, the engine stands 22″ tall with a nozzle diameter of 10.5″. The engine provided propulsion to take it to its destination and slow the Mars bound orbiter with its attached lander so that it could enter orbit around the planet. The engine was produced by Rocketdyne for the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and includes gimbal attachments which allowed the engine to be adjusted on a rotational axis for in-flight course corrections. It's beryllium thrust chamber was derived from the Minuteman ballistic missile program.
NASA sent two Viking spacecraft to Mars in the summer of 1976, and each comprised of an orbiter, which would photograph the surface, and a lander, which would study the surface and conduct several experiments. The whole spacecraft would orbit the planet for approximately one month, using the images relayed back to mission control to identify a landing site. The landers then separated and soft landed on the Martian surface, touching down in July and September of 1976. Both orbiters and landers eventually failed or were shut down, but not before achieving all of the mission’s scientific objectives, including imaging the Martian surface and searching for evidence of life on the planet. An incredibly rare offering for the most discerning space collector, and as close to a flown engine from the project as you will find.
