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Tampa – Seven years of work and a seven-month journey were about to end with nearly seven minutes of terror as NASA marked the final hours of the flight for the dramatic landing of its 993 Mars InSight spacecraft millions of dollars Monday.
The goal of Mars InSight is to listen to tremors and tremors in order to unravel the mysteries of the red planet, how it was formed billions of years ago and, by extension, how other rocky planets like Earth have taken shape.
The unmanned spaceship is NASA's first attempt to land on the planet next to Earth since Curiosity arrived 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 painful phase of entry, descent and landing begins at 11:47 am (1940 GMT / 2140 safe hours) at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, where the control of the mission for Mars InSight.
A carefully orchestrated sequence – already fully preprogrammed aboard the spacecraft – takes place during the next few minutes, known as "six and a half minutes of terror".
With a speed greater than one bullet at 19,300 miles per hour, the heat shielded probe encounters fierce friction as it enters the Mars atmosphere.
The heat shield rises to a temperature of 2,700 degrees Fahrenheit (about 1,500 degrees Celsius). The radio signals can be briefly lost.
The heat shield is thrown, the three landing legs unfold and the parachute comes out.
"We are in free fall for a little while, which is absolutely terrifying for me," said Tom Hoffman, InSight Project Manager.
But then, the thrusters start firing, further slowing the spacecraft by 800 pounds (365 kilograms) at a speed of about 5 mph when it reaches the surface.
Since there is no joystick on Earth for this spacecraft, and there is no way to intervene in case of a problem, Hoffman described his emotions as mixed. .
"I am completely comfortable and completely nervous at the same time," he said.
"We have done everything in our power to make sure we succeed, but you never know what will happen."
Hoffman added that he "had not slept as well", although he said that it could be due to his unruly toddlers, aged two and four years old.
When the first signal arrives at GMT 2001, it should show that the LG landed, intact and upright, "I will totally release my little four-year-old at this time. there, "he said.
Zurbuchen has described InSight as "unique" because the low-waist LG contains instruments provided by several European space agencies.
The National Center for Space Studies (CNES) of France has made the seismic experiment instrument for interior structures (SEIS), the key element of earthquake detection. .
The German Aerospace Center (DLR) has provided a self-hammering mole that can burrow five meters from the surface – further than any instrument before – to measure heat flow.
The Spanish Centro de Astrobiologia has manufactured the wind sensors of the probe.
The Space Research Center of the Polish Academy of Sciences and Astronika, the Swiss Institute of Technology, as well as Imperial College London and the University of Oxford, in Great Britain, have also made important contributions to the project.
Together, these instruments will study 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 "so we understand inside Mars as well as outside Mars," Banerdt told reporters.
NASA made one last course correction late Sunday night.
The rest of the landing sequence being pre-programmed, all NASA scientists can cross their fingers and hope that everything will be fine.
Coverage on the NASA website starts at 11 am (Paris time GMT / 2100).
AFP
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