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NASA's InSight spacecraft safely landed on Mars on Monday after a tense seven-minute descent. The robot is now dusted and sent back the first images of his sight on the surface of the red planet.
The first image that has come to us is a spotted fish-eye lens from Mars. Fortunately, a more recent image captured the Martian surface in a better definition, without being obscured by the translucent lens cap and dust that had allowed such a granular first impression.
The probe is currently sitting on the Elysium Planitia, a vast flat plain that NASA has dubbed the "The largest parking on Mars." The aircraft's heat shield, parachute and rocket propellers allowed the craft to land smoothly after entering the Red Planet's atmosphere by traveling faster than a fastball on Earth, in the first attempt of this type since 2012.
The robot will not spend the duration of its mission to take pictures of landscapes and selfies, but will instead conduct a thorough investigation of the deep interior of the red planet – the only planet with the exception of the Earth that humanity will have studied in this area. way.
The notification confirming that the aircraft had deployed its solar panels, essential to the longevity of the mission, arrived seven hours after touchdown thanks to the MarCO satellites A and B, the size of a briefcase, who relayed the mission data during the descent operation.
"After successfully retrieving all the data from InSight during its exciting Entry, Descent and Landing (EDL) sequence – you see an image taken about 4,700 miles from Mars, about 10- 15 minutes after the EDL itself, Andy Klesh, Chief Engineer at MarCO.
The InSight mission has three main objectives: deploying Franco-British seismometers to measure possible "marsquakes"; Activate a German "mole" that will dig five meters (16.4 feet) to take the temperature readings of the planet: and a third experiment will use radio waves to determine how Mars oscillates on its axis.
"If you take a raw egg and a cooked egg and you spin them, they flicker differently because of the distribution of the liquid in it. And today, we really do not know if the core of Mars is liquid or solid, and what is the size of this nucleus. InSight will give us this information, " Assistant project scientist Suzanne Smrekar said.
READ MORE: Elon Musk says there's a good chance he's dying on Mars
NASA also shared the inspiring moment of making contact and allowed Mission Control staff to breathe a sigh of relief and celebrate this event:
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