[ad_1]
Artistic representation of Elysium Planitia, where the NASA InSight lander will land on November 26th.
Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech
NASA is just days away from posing its robotic geoscientist, the March InSight Mars, on the surface of the red planet – but if all goes well, the explorer will not really have the view.
The $ 850-million project scientists focused very carefully on where they wanted to land. They settled on an elliptical section of an element called Elysium Planitia, a vast volcanic plain located a little north of the Curiosity robot house.
The team took into account two key criteria to decide on the location of the LG. The first is security. Landing on Mars is always a challenge because of the weak atmosphere of the planet. The InSight team therefore wanted relatively flat terrain to reduce the risk of tipping the robot to three feet at touchdown.
The second factor, of course, is science. It is particularly important that the landing site meets the research needs of the team, because InSight is a lander and can not move on the Martian surface: it will land at the location. where he will learn.
This meant that the site had to be able to accommodate the InSight instruments, especially the probe that will hammer 5 meters below the surface to measure the underground temperature of the planet.
Among other constraints, there was a pretty hot and sunny place to gratify InSight electronics and to let its two large solar circular batteries generate enough energy to make the robot work.
On an initial menu of 22 potential landing sites, the InSight team decided that only three of them were solid candidates. Among these, Elysium Planitia stands out as being the flatter, without too much pebbles or gusts of wind that could potentially disturb the undercarriage. The InSight workshop has created an ellipse 130 km long and 27 km wide that the satellite should aim Monday.
Assuming everything goes well during the crucial 6 minutes of entry, descent and landing, InSight will get to work, first deploying its solar panels to absorb the sun, then unpacking its instruments to begin drilling the secrets of the interior of Mars.
Email Meghan Bartels at [email protected] or follow her. @meghanbartels. follow us @Spacedotcom and Facebook. Original article on Space.com.
[ad_2]
Source link
