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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.
The spectacular arrival of the $ 993 million space probe – designed to listen to earthquakes and earthquakes as a way to unravel the inner mysteries of the red planet, how it's formed there There are billions of years and, by extension, how other rocky planets like Earth took shape – marked eighth successful landing on Mars in the history of NASA.
"The touchdown has been confirmed," said a mission control operator at NASA, while pent-up anxiety and excitement were spreading across the room, and that dozens of scientists were rising up for s & rsquo; # 39; embrace. "It was intense and the emotion was palpable," said NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine, 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 is approaching when we will be landing humans on Mars," said Bridenstine, adding that the goal was to do so by the mid-2030s.
According to the first communications received from the Martian surface, the vehicle seemed in good condition. But as expected, the dust raised during the landing masked the first photo returned by InSight, which was very dark.
"We never take Mars for granted"
The French National Space Studies Center (CNES) has made the Seismic Experience Instrument for Indoor Structures (SEIS) the key element for detecting earthquakes. The chief investigator of the French seismometer, Philippe Lognonne, said he was "relieved and very happy" to the result. "I just received confirmation that there are no pebbles in front of the lander," he told AFP.
And in a crucial last phase, NASA said that InSight had reported to Earth that its solar panels – two solar panels 2.2 meters wide – were open and were capturing solar light at the same time. surface of Mars.
"The InSight team can rest a little easier tonight, now that we know that the spacecraft's solar panels are deployed and are recharging the batteries," said Tom Hoffman, InSight Project Manager. – Entry, descent, landing – The spacecraft is the first to approach NASA The planet next to Earth since the arrival of the robot Curiosity 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 for the Science Mission Directorate on Sunday. The stinging phase of entry, descent and landing began at 7:40 pm at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, the seat of Mission Control for Mars InSight, and is currently underway. finished one second before 19:53.
A carefully orchestrated sequence – already fully preprogrammed aboard the spacecraft – took place over the next few minutes, called "six and a half minutes of terror". Speed faster than a bullet at 19,800 km / h, the armored spacecraft encountered significant friction when it entered the atmosphere of Mars.
The heat shield reached a temperature of about 1,500 degrees Celsius before being scrapped, the three landing legs unfolded and the parachute came out, allowing InSight to reach the Martian surface. – Objective: 3D map of the interior of Mars -InSight were 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 previously – to measure the flow of The Centro de Astrobiologia de España manufactured the aircraft 's wind sensors and three of the InSight seismic instruments were designed and built in 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 investigator of 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. in the interior of Mars as well as we have come to understand the outside of Mars, "Banerdt told reporters.
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