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Cable TV first came to home town in 1976 when I lived with parents and mine got HBO right off and I still remember seeing most movies like this I saw on it while living there as it was such a novel seeming idea at time.
Fun conspiracy movie with good cast, plenty of CTs here since Obama. If we landed on Mars now (not possible) you can bet this one would be floating around here.

Capricorn One is a 1978 American thriller movie about a Mars landing hoax

At an unspecified time,[2] Capricorn One—the first manned mission to Mars—is on the launch pad. Such NASA authorities as Dr. James Kelloway (Hal Holbrook) realize, too late, that a faulty life-support system supplied by a corrupt NASA contractor will kill the astronauts during the flight. As the manned space program needs a success to continue, they find themselves forced to falsify the landing rather than cancel the mission.

Minutes before launch, the bewildered crew of Air Force Colonel Charles Brubaker (James Brolin), Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Peter Willis (Sam Waterston), and Navy Commander John Walker (O. J. Simpson) are removed from Capricorn One and flown to an abandoned United States Army Air Corps desert base. The launch proceeds on schedule, but the public is unaware that the spacecraft is empty. At the base, the astronauts are informed they will help counterfeit the television footage during the flight to and from Mars, and that it is their patriotic duty to participate for the sake of national morale and prestige. Initially they refuse, but Kelloway, himself under extreme duress (from whom, what, or where is never clearly specified) to go through with the hoax, threatens their families if they do not cooperate, claiming a bomb will explode on a plane carrying the family members.