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Applause and applause broke out Monday at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, while an unmanned waist-to-the-waist landing called InSight landed on Mars, ending a nearly seven-year journey from the design to set up.
by Laurent BANGUET / with Kerry SHERIDAN in Tampa
The spectacular arrival of the $ 993 million space probe – designed to listen to tremors and tremors as a way to unravel the inner mysteries of the red planet, how it's formed there are billions years ago, and by extension, how other rocky planets like Earth took shape – marked eighth successful landing on Mars in the history of NASA.
"The clash has been confirmed," said a mission control operator at NASA, while pent-up anxiety and excitement invaded the room and that dozens of scientists were rising for S & H. # 39; embrace.
"It was intense and the emotion was palpable," NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said in an interview with NASA TV.
Bridenstine also said that President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence had watched on television and called on the US Space Agency to congratulate him for his hard work.
"In the end, the day will come when we will land humans on Mars," said Bridenstine, adding that the goal was to do so by the mid-2030s.
The vehicle seemed in good condition, according to the first communications received from the Martian surface.
But as expected, the dust raised during the landing masked the first image returned by InSight, which was very dark.
The National Center for Space Studies (CNES) in France has made the SEIS instrument (Experimental Sismic Experiment for Interior Structure) the key element in the detection of earthquakes.
The principal investigator on the French seismometer, Philippe Lognonne, is said "relieved and very happy" of the result.
"I just received confirmation that there are no pebbles in front of the lander," he told AFP.
Then, InSight must open its solar panels, as NASA waits later in the afternoon to find out if this crucial last phase has unfolded as planned.
The spacecraft is supposed to be powered by solar energy once it reaches the surface of Mars.
– Entry, descent, landing –
The spacecraft is NASA's first aircraft to land on the planet next to Earth since Curiosity's installation of the mobile device in 2012.
More than half of the 43 landing attempts, orbits and probes conducted by space agencies around the world on Mars have failed.
NASA is the only space agency to have created and invested in these robotic missions to prepare for the first human explorers related to Mars in the 2030s.
"We never take Mars for granted. Mars is difficult, "said Thomas Zurbuchen, NASA's Associate Administrator, on Sunday.
The stinging phase of entry, descent and landing began at 1147 (1940 GMT) at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, the seat of Mars InSight's mission control, and finished a second before 1953 GMT.
A carefully orchestrated sequence – already fully preprogrammed aboard the probe – took place over the next few minutes, called "six and a half minutes of terror".
Shooting at 19,300 miles an hour, the heat-shielded spacecraft encountered intense friction when it entered the Mars atmosphere.
The heat shield reached a temperature of 2700 degrees Fahrenheit (about 1500 degrees Celsius) before being scrapped, the three landing legs unfolded and the parachute came out, bringing InSight to the Martian surface.
– Objective: 3D map of Mars inside –
InSight contains key instruments provided by several European space agencies.
The French CNES manufactured the SEIS instrument, while the German Aerospace Center (DLR) provided a self-hammering mole capable of digging five meters into the surface – further than any instrument before – for measure the heat flow.
In Spain, the Centro de Astrobiologia has manufactured the spacecraft's wind sensors and three of InSight's seismic instruments have been designed and manufactured in Great Britain.
The Space Research Center of the Polish Academy of Sciences and Astronika and the Swiss Institute of Technology have also made significant contributions.
"This is great news that the InSight spacecraft has safely landed on Mars," said Sue Horne, space exploration chief at the British Space Agency.
Together, the instruments will study the geological processes, said Bruce Banerdt, principal researcher at InSight at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
By listening to tremors on Mars, whether it's about earthquakes, meteor impacts or even volcanic activity, scientists can learn more about its interior and reveal how the planet is formed.
The goal is to map the interior of Mars in three dimensions, "so we understand inside Mars and we also understand the outside of Mars," Banerdt told reporters. DM
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