Viking 1
Viking 1 was the first of two spacecraft (along with "Viking 2") sent to Mars as part of NASA's Viking program. On July 20, 1976, it became the second spacecraft to soft-land on Mars, and the first soft lander to successfully perform its mission. (The first spacecraft to soft-land on Mars was the Soviet Union's Mars 3 on December 2, 1971, which stopped transmitting after 14.5 seconds.) "Viking 1" held the record for the longest Mars surface mission of days (over 6¼ years) or Martian solar days, until that record was broken by "Opportunity" on May 19, 2010.
List of missions to minor planets
Spacecraft visits to minor planets have mostly been flybys, and have ranged from dedicated missions to incidental flybys and targets of opportunity for spacecraft that have already completed their missions. The first spacecraft to visit an asteroid was "Galileo", which flew past 951 Gaspra in October 1991; an incidental encounter while the probe was en route to Jupiter. The first dedicated mission was "NEAR Shoemaker", which was launched in February 1996, and entered orbit around 433 Eros in February 2000, having first flown past 253 Mathilde. "NEAR" was also the first spacecraft to land on an asteroid, surviving what was intended to be an impact with Eros at 20:01 on 12 February 2001 at the planned end of its mission. As a result of its unexpected survival, the spacecraft's mission was extended until 1 March to allow data to be collected from the surface.