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For the eighth time in history, humanity has accomplished one of the most difficult tasks of the solar system: landing on Mars.
The InSight lander, operated by NASA and built by scientists in the United States, France and Germany, landed in the vast red expanse of the Elysium Planitia of Mars just before 3 pm Monday night. East
. It will operate for the next two Earth years by deploying a seismometer, a heat sensor and a radio antenna to probe the interior of the Red Planet. Scientists hope that InSight will discover signs of tectonic activity and clues to the planet's past. These discoveries could illustrate the fact that Mars has become the deserted and desolate world we see today.
Mission control at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, burst out laughing, applause, hugs and tears as soon as the lander landed.
"It was awesome," said a woman, wiping her eyes and shaking hands with her colleague. A few minutes later, a spotted image of red and brown appears on the main screen of the control room – the first photo of InSight taken from his new home.
This was the first landing of NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine at the head of the agency.
"An incredible day," he said at a press conference Monday afternoon. "Being in the room when the data stops and knowing how silent it becomes … and then, once the data is recovered, the exaltation."
Principal Investigator Bruce Banerdt began his career as an intern at JPL on the Viking mission, the first successful landing on Mars. Seeing InSight's initial granular image gave the impression of "closing the loop," he said.
Through the debris covering the dust cover of his camera, InSight captured a small rock (which should not be a problem for science) and the edge of his foot. . In the distance, the horizon of Mars is emerging.
"This case still has a lot to do," said Rob Grover, engineer of entry, descent and landing systems. "But reaching the surface of Mars is not a trivial matter."
The endless stretch separating the moment when a spaceship hits the Martian atmosphere to the second when it touches the rusty surface of the red planet corresponds to what scientists call "the seven minutes of terror." "
More than half of the missions fail to reach the surface safely. Since it takes more than seven minutes for light signals to travel 100 million kilometers on Earth, scientists have no control over the process. All they can do is program the spaceship with its best technology and wait.
"Every milestone is something that happened 8 minutes ago," Bridenstine said. "It's already history."
The tension was palpable Monday morning in the control room of JPL, where InSight was built and will be operated. At parties all over the world – NASA headquarters in Washington, Nasdaq tower in Times Square, big hall of the Science and Industry Museum in Paris, public library in Haines, Alaska – trembling legs and fingers crossed over the minutes towards the beginning of the entrance, descent and landing.
At approximately 11:47, engineers received a signal that InSight had entered the Martian atmosphere. The probe plunged to the surface of the planet at a speed of 12,300 mph. In less than two minutes, the heat shield of InSight roasted by friction reached 2700 degrees.
Grover let out a deep breath: "It's hot."
Two minutes later, a supersonic parachute deployed to slow down the probe's progress. The radar was on.
From there, the most critical descent checklist went quickly: 15 seconds to separate the heat shield. Ten seconds to spread the legs. Activate the radar. Jettison the back shell. Fire the retrorockets. East for Landing
One of the engineers leaned toward his computer, his hands crossed in front of his face, elbows on his desk.
"400 meters," came a voice on the radio to control the mission. "300 meters, 80 meters, 30 meters, constant speed."
The eyes of engineer Kris Bruvold went wide. His mouth opened in an "o". He bounced back on his seat.
"Touchdown confirmed."
Bruvold smiled and raised his hands in the air.
Grover let out a relieved little laugh, "Wow, it never gets old."
Finally, at 12:01, scientists heard a tiny radio beep, radio signal InSight. is active and works on the red planet.
"Flawless," said Grover. "Without fail, that's what we were really hoping for and what we imagined in our mind."
Vice President Mike Pence was an anxious observer, said Bridenstine.He called the administrator to congratulate NASA a few minutes after the successful landing of InSight
The goal is to determine the composition of Mars and its evolution since its formation, more than 4 billion years ago, which could help to solve the mystery of the transformation of the red planet into an arid and desolate world that we know today [19659002] At the beginning of its history, Mars might have looked a lot like the Earth Magnetization in ancient rocks suggests a global magnetic field similar to that of the Earth, fed by a mantle and a metal core which protect it, allowing it to maintain a much thicker atmosphere than that which currently exists; which has likely allowed liquid water to accumulate on the surface of Mars. The images taken by the satellites reveal the contours of lakes, deltas and rivers long gone canyons carved by the eruption
But the last three billion years have been a slow-motion disaster for the red planet. The dynamo is dead, the magnetic field has weakened, the water has evaporated and more than half of the atmosphere has been washed away by the solar winds. InSight's mission was to determine why.
There is no orbiting spacecraft positioned correctly around Mars to relay real-time information about InSight's descent and landing on Earth. But while InSight was making its precarious descent, NASA was hoping to know its status via the MarCo satellites, a tiny experimental spacecraft called CubeSats that accompanied the lander on his flight to Mars. Each has solar panels, a color camera and an antenna to relay communications from the Martian surface to the Earth.
About 10 minutes before the landing, the JPL control room burst into applause – the two MarCo satellites were working.
"That means the team can now watch the data flowing through their screens," said Grover.
Without MarCo, NASA should have waited several hours to know the fate of InSight. Their success during this mission could provide "a possible model for a new type of interplanetary communications relay," said systems engineer Anne Marinan in a NASA press release last week.
The two tiny spacecraft will continue in their sun-centered orbit, and the MarCo team is discussing with NASA options for other mission projects.
NASA should know if the LG's solar panels rolled out Monday night, thanks to records from the Orbit Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The agency will also get its first clear images of the Space Shuttle landing site – a vast plain almost featureless near the equator.
"I am extremely happy to be in a very safe and boring landing site," said the project. manager Tom Hoffman.
Unlike the opportunities and curiosity, the rovers that crisscross Mars in search of interesting rocks, InSight is designed to sit and listen. Using its dome-shaped seismic sensor, scientists hope to detect tiny tremors badociated with meteorite impacts, dust storms and "marsquakes" generated by the cooling of the interior of the planet. As seismic waves propagate, they are deformed by changes in the materials encountered (molten rock plumes or liquid water reservoirs), thus revealing the surface beneath the surface of the planet.
Hydrogen atom. But it must also be robust enough to survive the perilous landing process. Nothing comparable to this has been deployed on any planet, not even the Earth.
Designing this instrument, said Philippe Lognonné, the principal investigator, "was not just a technical adventure, but also a human adventure".
InSight also features a drill capable of burying 16 feet – deeper than any Mars instrument. From there, he can take the temperature of Mars to determine how much heat is still coming out of the body of the planet. During this time, two antennas will accurately track the location of the LG to determine the magnitude of the Mars swing as it revolves around the sun.
InSight will take two to three months to begin conducting scientific activities, said Elizabeth Barrett, scientific systems engineer for the mission.
This is the first time that NASA uses a robotic arm to place instruments on the surface of Mars. The agency wants to be careful. There is no option that allows a technician to be repaired in case of a problem.
"It's a bit like playing the claw in a fairground, but with a very precious price … from 300 million kilometers," said Barret.
But the information collected by InSight will not only add to what we know of Mars, they could provide clues as to what happened on Earth billions of years ago. "Suzanne Smrekar, Investigator Deputy Chief of Mission, "said Suzanne Smrekar, the Mission's Senior Deputy Investigator
" Most of the early records of the Earth have been lost in favor of the inexorable tour de table. "to what we see inside the Earth, but it is preserved," she said. "It gives us a chance to go back in time."
Bridenstine said Monday that information from InSight could guide a crew mission to Mars, providing information about the waters of Mars, the risk of asteroid impacts and resources potentially being used by human explorers.
"The more we learn, the more we can achieve," he said.
© The Washington Post 2018
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