Big test for the tiny satellites trolling the March lenker

A pair of tiny experimental satellites tracing NASA's InSight satellite to Mars is facing its biggest test so far.

Their mission: to disseminate immediate information, good or bad, about the diving of InSight in the Martian atmosphere on Monday.

Named WALL-E and EVE after the main characters of the 2008 animated film, the twin CubeSats will pass a few thousand kilometers from Mars when the LG will attempt his touchdown.

If these pipsqueaks manage to relay the InSight radio signals to ground controllers at nearly 160 million kilometers (160 million kilometers), we'll know in minutes if the spacecraft has landed safely.

A look at the itty-bitty acolytes of InSight:

Hitchchiders

From the size of a briefcase, WALL-E and EVE have mounted the same rocket that launched InSight to Mars in May. CubeSats still share rockets; they are too small and inexpensive to guarantee their own launch. The Mars Cube One project, or MarCO, built and managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, cost $ 18.5 million.

FLIGHT TRAINING

NASA kept the CubeSats about 10,000 kilometers from InSight on the 300-mile journey to Mars to prevent collisions or close calls. Mini-satellites were as far apart from each other for the same reason. The room for maneuver in this "very loose formation," as Chief Engineer Andy Klesh describes it, has varied over the course of the mission and narrows as the spacecraft approaches Mars.

BETTER BEHAVIOR

For the record, EVE performed better than WALL-E during the 6 ½ month trip to Mars. Each CubeSat uses the same type of cold gas propulsion as fire extinguishers to spray foam. In the movie, WALL-E uses a fire extinguisher to propel itself into space. In fact, WALL-E loses fuel almost since take-off. The flight controllers have solved the problem. Meanwhile, "EVE seems to follow his name and has been flying very well throughout the mission," Klesh said.

DRY RUN

In June, WALL-E and EVE performed a series of radio relay tests using signals from a large satellite dish located near Palo Alto, California. Klesh said the engineers had confidence in the CubeSats' ability to do the same with InSight signals on the day of landing. Last month, the pair returned photos of Mars to 13 million kilometers. Mars was just a clarification, but the team said CubeSat was a first.

ALL OUIE

It takes eight minutes and seven seconds for a radio signal to pass from Mars to Earth, in a sense. It should take less than a minute to get an InSight message, if the mini-satellites cooperate. This means that NASA could know the fate of InSight almost in real time. If WALL-E and EVE are the moms, the confirmation will come directly from the LG or, a few hours later, from the space probe circling Mars.

GOAL FUTURE

As NASA explores new worlds, it would be useful to have outposts for retransmitting downhill and landing updates. Spacecraft already in orbit around Mars serve this purpose every time NASA sends a lander. But where there are no satellites – think of asteroids or dwarf planets on the periphery of our solar system – CubeSats could intervene, with little overhead and low cost.

BEYOND MARCH

Whether or not they provide information about InSight, WALL-E and EVE will fly over Mars and stay in an elliptical orbit around the sun. Engineers expect that they will continue to work a few weeks after March, depending on how long the fuel is stored and electronics.

Explore further:
NASA's first image on Mars from a CubeSat