Photo: NASA
In a few hours, on November 26, the NASA InSight mission would have reached its destination, Mars, and both the European and American space agencies are all hands on deck for the historic moment.
The InSight landing is the first arrival of a man made machine on Mars since 2012, when the Curiosity rover touched down.
But unlike the Curiosity, InSight is immobile and has a very important task to do in a very specific place. This means the ship will have to land in the designated area, Elysium Planitia, affectionately named by scientists “the biggest parking lot on Mars.” For the landing to go as planned, the two agencies will have to work together like never before on such a mission.
InSIght will be entering the Martian atmosphere at 12,300 mph (19,800 km/h) and will spend seven minutes decelerating to a speed of only 5 mph (8 km/h). During this whole time, mission control will communicate with the ship using ESA’s deep-space ground tracking stations. These stations will be key yo talking to the lander even after this stage has passed.
NASA will be using its two on-site reporters, the CubeSats that have accompanied the mission, to get news of InSight’s successful landing. If the satellites work, mission control will know if the landing succeeded eight minutes after the fact.
Once on the ground, the lander is scheduled to stay there for two years and survey Mars like never before. It will look for quakes, perturbations of Mars' rotation axis, information about the planet's core or the amount of heat escaping from underneath, as a means for us to learn more about the formation of rocky worlds.
During its mission, the lander will be observed from above by a number of NASA and ESA orbiters, so the world will know what the InSIght is up to.
The InSight landing is the first arrival of a man made machine on Mars since 2012, when the Curiosity rover touched down.
But unlike the Curiosity, InSight is immobile and has a very important task to do in a very specific place. This means the ship will have to land in the designated area, Elysium Planitia, affectionately named by scientists “the biggest parking lot on Mars.” For the landing to go as planned, the two agencies will have to work together like never before on such a mission.
InSIght will be entering the Martian atmosphere at 12,300 mph (19,800 km/h) and will spend seven minutes decelerating to a speed of only 5 mph (8 km/h). During this whole time, mission control will communicate with the ship using ESA’s deep-space ground tracking stations. These stations will be key yo talking to the lander even after this stage has passed.
NASA will be using its two on-site reporters, the CubeSats that have accompanied the mission, to get news of InSight’s successful landing. If the satellites work, mission control will know if the landing succeeded eight minutes after the fact.
Once on the ground, the lander is scheduled to stay there for two years and survey Mars like never before. It will look for quakes, perturbations of Mars' rotation axis, information about the planet's core or the amount of heat escaping from underneath, as a means for us to learn more about the formation of rocky worlds.
During its mission, the lander will be observed from above by a number of NASA and ESA orbiters, so the world will know what the InSIght is up to.
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