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27/11/2018
Pasadena, California
AFP
"Landing confirmed!": The American InSight probe is placed on Martian soil and has already sent the first photo of the surface of the red planet.
After seven years of work and seven months of space travel, the American InSight spacecraft is "armed" and sent the image shortly thereafter.
Each successful milestone in this millimeter and risky operation sparked a hubbub in NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory control center in Pasadena, California. This is the first time since 2012 that an artifact has landed on Mars after NASA's Curiosity vehicle, the only one currently active on the surface of the red planet, has done so.
Successes and failures
More than half of the 43 attempts to bring robots, satellites or others onto Mars – deployed by space agencies around the world – have failed.
Only the United States managed to place artifacts there, investing in these missions in order to prepare for a future incursion with human explorers for the 2030s.
The director of the space agency, Jim Bridenstine, said that the laboratory of this mission, which he estimated that it has unfolded "in the middle of 2030", will be the Moon.
The probe traveled about 20,000 km / h, three to four times faster than a rifle bullet, to reach a rectangular area of about 10 km by 24 km. After leaving a point on Earth, 480 million kilometers away, it was "like scoring a goal at 130,000 kilometers," NASA said.
The InSight must now open its solar panels, a crucial phase for NASA.
Comprehension
This $ 993 million probe should listen and scrutinize inside Mars to try to unravel the mysteries of its formation, billions of years ago. Knowledge that could later better understand the formation of the Earth, the only rocky planet from which its interior has really been studied.
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