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Nasa's Insight Mars probe landed for the first time on the red planet after landing on November 26th. To make a selfie, the spacecraft used a camera installed on its robotic arm.
The Insght Mars spacecraft is an unmanned spacecraft that has traveled 482 million km to reach the red planet. Its mission is to "look inward" of Mars: its instruments allow to detect the seismic activities inside the planet.
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The photo sent by Insgiht is actually a mosaic of 11 images. You can see the solar panel of the probe and all its bridge, including scientific instruments.
The image reveals the state of the spacecraft – without malfunctions – and allows the people involved in the mission to know that the probe is performing operations and is operating normally.
Members of the mission team also received the first complete record in "InSight's workspace" – a 4-by-2-meter high area in front of the spacecraft. This image is also a mosaic composed of 52 individual photos.
Over the next few weeks, scientists and engineers should decide to Location of the spacecraft instruments in this workspace.
They will then ask InSight's robotic arm to carefully define the seismometer (called the Seismic Experiment for Internal Structure, or SIX) and the Heat Flow Probe (known as the Thermal and Physical Properties Module). , HP3). places. Both work best on flat terrain and engineers would like to avoid placing them on rocks larger than 1.3 cm.
"The near absence of rocks, hills and holes means our instruments will be extremely safe," said Bruce Banerdt of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.
"This may seem like a very simple piece of land if it was not on Mars, but we were happy to see it."
The InSight landing team chose a region for the probe landing at Elysium Planitia, relatively clear of rocks. Despite everything, the landing site is even better than expected.
The Space Shuttle is based on what appears to be an almost rock-free "cavity" – a depression created by a meteor that is filled with sand. This should allow one of the instruments of InSight, the heat flow sensor, to reach its goal at 5 meters below the surface.
