The NASA Mars InSight lander has nearly completed its nearly 300 million kilometer journey and is gearing up for a landing on Mars on Monday afternoon, around 3 pm EST.
Why it's important: If successful, the InSight Lander would become the first American robot to land on Mars since the arrival of the Curiosity rover in 2012. Unlike other spacecraft sent on Mars, this one will not be used. 39 is not designed to look for signs of life, but rather to examine the inside of the planet. for clues about how some planets, including the Earth, were formed about 4 billion years ago.
What to watch: The United States is the only country that has managed to land on Mars, but a landing without a hitch is not guaranteed.
Mars InSight will enter the planet's atmosphere at a vertiginous speed of about 12,300 miles per hour, and friction will heat the probe to 2,700 degrees Fahrenheit. A parachute and retro-rocket propellers will slow it down enough for a smooth three-legged landing on the Elysium Planitia, a flat region close to the planet's equator.
- This landing will be different from some of the previous landings of rovers, which involved a balloon-like structure bouncing off the rovers protected inside. The Curiosity rover landed with the help of an aerial car, during which a descent stage slowed down in hover and brought it back to the ground – the culmination of a descent nicknamed the "Seven Minutes of Terror" ".
Details:
- Launched May 5, InSight will be the first spacecraft to penetrate the depths of the red planet. Scientists hope that the data thus collected will provide clues to the formation of the rocky planet.
- The information gathered could even enlighten us on the evolution of our planet and those of our solar system.
"InSight will address a fundamental problem in the science of the solar system, not just specific questions about a single planet.In studying Mars, InSight would illuminate the first evolution of rocky planets, including the Earth," said NASA in a mission sheet.
- Two miniature spacecraft, known as Mars Cube One, follow InSight, but do not land on Mars.
- Instead, they will serve as data relay stations to send the information collected by InSight to Earth scientists.
- These two spacecraft are the very first CubeSats, a category of very small satellites, to launch into deep space.
- The mission is not entirely a NASA operation. Several European institutions contributed to its payload, including the National Center for Space Studies (CNES) and the German Aerospace Center (DLR).
How to watch: NASA will broadcast live coverage of the InSight landing from 2 pm Eastern time on Monday. In addition, the agency hosts surveillance nights in more than a dozen locations in the United States and other countries.
Go further: NASA just days away from a risky landing (AP)
