The Viking program consisted of a pair of American space probes sent to Mars, Viking 1 and Viking 2. Each spacecraft was composed of two main parts: an orbiter designed to photograph the surface of Mars from orbit, a lander designed to study the planet from the surface; the orbiters served as communication relays for the landers once they touched down. The Viking program grew from NASA's earlier more ambitious, Voyager Mars program, not related to the successful Voyager deep space probes of the late 1970s. Viking 1 was launched on August 20, 1975, the second craft, Viking 2, was launched on September 9, 1975, both riding atop Titan IIIE rockets with Centaur upper stages. Viking 1 entered Mars orbit on June 19, 1976, with Viking 2 following suit on August 7. After orbiting Mars for more than a month and returning images used for landing site selection, the orbiters and landers detached; the Viking 1 lander touched down on the surface of Mars on July 20, 1976, was joined by the Viking 2 lander on September 3.

The orbiters continued imaging and performing other scientific operations from orbit while the landers deployed instruments on the surface. The project cost US$1 billion in 1970s dollars, equivalent to about 5 billion USD in 2018 dollars; the mission was considered successful and is credited with helping to form most of the body of knowledge about Mars through the late 1990s and early 2000s. Obtain high-resolution images of the Martian surface Characterize the structure and composition of the atmosphere and surface Search for evidence of life on Mars The primary objectives of the two Viking orbiters were to transport the landers to Mars, perform reconnaissance to locate and certify landing sites, act as communications relays for the landers, to perform their own scientific investigations; each orbiter, based on the earlier Mariner 9 spacecraft, was an octagon 2.5 m across. The fueled orbiter-lander pair had a mass of 3527 kg. After separation and landing, the lander had a mass of the orbiter 900 kg.

The total launch mass was 2328 kg, of which 1445 kg were attitude control gas. The eight faces of the ring-like structure were 0.4572 m high and were alternately 1.397 and 0.508 m wide. The overall height was 3.29 m from the lander attachment points on the bottom to the launch vehicle attachment points on top. There were 3 on each of the 4 long faces and one on each short face. Four solar panel wings extended from the axis of the orbiter, the distance from tip to tip of two oppositely extended solar panels was 9.75 m. The main propulsion unit was mounted above the orbiter bus. Propulsion was furnished by a bipropellant liquid-fueled rocket engine which could be gimballed up to 9 degrees; the engine was capable of 1,323 N thrust. Attitude control was achieved by 12 small compressed-nitrogen jets. An acquisition Sun sensor, a cruise Sun sensor, a Canopus star tracker and an inertial reference unit consisting of six gyroscopes allowed three-axis stabilization. Two accelerometers were on board. Communications were accomplished through two 20 W TWTAs.

An X band downlink was added for radio science and to conduct communications experiments. Uplink was via S band. A two-axis steerable parabolic dish antenna with a diameter of 1.5 m was attached at one edge of the orbiter base, a fixed low-gain antenna extended from the top of the bus. Two tape recorders were each capable of storing 1280 megabits. A 381-MHz relay radio was available; the power to the two orbiter craft was provided by eight 1.57 × 1.23 m solar panels, two on each wing. The solar panels produced 620 W of power at Mars. Power was stored in two nickel-cadmium 30-A·h batteries; the combined area of the four panels was 15 square meters, they provided both regulated and unregulated direct current power. Two 30-amp-hour, nickel-cadmium, rechargeable batteries provided power when the spacecraft was not facing the Sun, during launch, correction maneuvers and Mars occultation. By discovering many geological forms that are formed from large amounts of water, the images from the orbiters caused a revolution in our ideas about water on Mars.

Huge river valleys were found in many areas. They showed that floods of water broke through dams, carved deep valleys, eroded grooves into bedrock, travelled thousands of kilometers. Large areas in the southern hemisphere contained branched stream networks, suggesting that rain once fell; the flanks of some volcanoes are believed to have been exposed to rainfall because they resemble those caused on Hawaiian volcanoes. Many craters look; when they were formed, ice in the soil may have melted, turned the ground into mud flowed across the surface. Material from an impact goes up down, it does not flow across the surface. Regions, called "Chaotic Terrain," seemed to have lost great volumes of water, causing large channels to be formed; the amount of water involved was estimated to ten thousand times the flow of the Mississippi River. Underground volcanism may have melted frozen ice; each lander comprised a six-sided aluminium base with alternate 1.09 and 0.56 m long sides, supported on three extended legs attac

AgroChem, Inc. is a owned manufacturing company located in Saratoga Springs, NY, that specializes in supplying chemicals and formulated products to dairy farms, including hoof care products, teat dips, cleaning products. The company employs 30 people and averages 10 – 20 million dollars in sales annually; the company was founded in 2005 by his son, Robert DeMarco. AgroChem leased production space in W. J. Grande Industrial Park until purchasing five acres in the park in 2016 to build their current facility, which takes up 38,000 sq. ft. The firm maintains warehouses in Wisconsin, Texas and Canada; the DeMarcos own Biosan, which produces peracetic acid as an alternative to chlorine bleach, operates out of the same plant as AgroChem, Inc. AgroChem, Inc. produces Healmax, a topical antiseptic available as a spray, foam, or footbath concentrate to promote healthy hooves. The product is patented in the U. S. New Zealand, Canada. Other products include teat dips, which are placed on a cow’s udder to keep bacteria out of milk and help prevent mastitis.

The chemical products are regulated by the FDA and sold around the world to customers in Russia, United Kingdom and western Europe through over 100 distributors. International sales accounted for 15 percent of overall sales in 2015

Annotations to Records of the Three Kingdoms by Pei Songzhi is an annotation completed in the 5th century of the 3rd century historical text Records of the Three Kingdoms, compiled by Chen Shou. After leaving his native land, Pei Songzhi became the Gentleman of Texts under the Liu Song Dynasty, was given the assignment of editing the book, completed in 429; this became the official history of the Three Kingdoms period, under the title Sanguozhi zhu. He went about providing detailed explanations to some of the geography and other elements mentioned in the original. More he made corrections to the work, in consultation with records he collected of the period. In regard to historical events and figures, as well as Chen Shou's opinions, he added his own commentary. From his broad research, he was able to create a history, complete, without many of the loose ends of the original; some of the added material was colourful and of questionable authenticity fictional. All the additional material made the book close to twice the length of the original.

Quoting classics was an inescapable reality of Chinese political and academic life as early as the Eastern Zhou period. Pei Songzhi cites classics in order to contextualize quotations made by speakers in Chen Shou's original text, to explain the philosophy or background behind a person's actions; these works do not constitute historical sources for Pei Songzhi's purposes, but are included here for sake of completeness. Pei Songzhi quotes other historians without citing any book or document title. Sun Sheng, Gan Bao, Xi Zuochi are common; these may have been marginal notes in Pei's copy of Records of the Three Kingdoms, or personal notes to which he had access. Pei Songzhi will report hearsay without any attribution. Crump, J. I. Jr. transl. Chan-Kuo Ts'e. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971. Fang Xuanling inter al. eds. 晉書, 648. Beijing: Zhonghua Publishing, 1974. 10 vols. Gao Min, 《三國志》裴松之注引書考. Journal of Henan University of Science and Technology, 25.3, pp 5–21. Lu Ji, 陸機集, Jin Taosheng, ed. Beijing: Zhonghua Publishing, 1982.

Lu Yaodong, 裴松之三國志注引雜傳集釋. 台大歷史學報, 1, pp 1–18. Pei Songzhi, 三國志注. 429. Hong Kong: Zhonghua Publishing, 1971. 5 vols. Qian Daxin, 廿二史考異. 1797. Cited in Gao. Schaberg, David, A Patterned Past: Form and Thought in Early Chinese Historiography. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2001. Shen Jiaben, 沉簃籍先生遺書乙篇. 1910s. Cited in Gao. Wang Zuyi, 三國志人名錄. Commercial Press, 1956. Cited in Gao. Wei Zheng inter al. eds. 隋書, 636. Beijing: Zhonghua Publishing, 1973. 6 vols. Zhao Yi, 廿二史劄記. 1770s. Cited in Gao. Records of the Three Kingdoms 《三國志》 Chinese text with annotations by Pei Songzhi and matching English vocabulary