NASA ships land on Mars after a dangerous journey

Flight controllers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, jumped out of their chairs shouting, dancing and hugging, after learning that InSight had arrived safely on Mars, the cemetery. many previous missions.

"Touchdown confirmed!" a flight controller called just before 3 pm EST, instantly dispelling the worry that reigned in the control room as the spacecraft made its descent six minutes.

Due to the distance between Earth and Mars, the confirmation took eight minutes, relayed by a pair of tiny satellites that followed InSight throughout the six-month trip on a 300-million-mile route (482 million kilometers ).

The two experimental satellites not only transmitted the good news almost in real time, but they also returned the first InSight snapshot on Mars, 4 and a half minutes after the landing.

The photo was dotted with debris because the dust cover was still visible on the LG camera, but at first glance the terrain was smooth and sandy with only one visible rock, pretty much what that scientists hoped. Better photos are expected in the next days.

This was NASA's successful eighth landing on Earth since the 1976 Viking probes, and the first since six years. The NASA Curiosity robot, arrived in 2012, is still moving on Mars.

"Flawless," said Rob Manning, chief engineer of JPL. "That's what we really hoped and imagined in our minds," he added. "Sometimes things work in your favor."

NASA's director, Jim Bridenstine, who was presiding over his first landing on Mars as head of the space agency, said, "What an amazing day for our country."

Many spacecraft bound for Mars launched by the United States, Russia and other space countries have been lost or destroyed over the years, with a success rate of only 40%, not counting InSight.

NASA opted this time for a straightforward and straightforward approach, using a parachute and braking motors to boost the speed of InSight at a speed of 12,300 km / h (19,800 km / h) when it was used. it crossed the Martian atmosphere, about 114 km, at a speed of 5 km / h to the touch. The danger was that the spacecraft could be consumed in the atmosphere or rebound.

Three-legged InSight is installed on the west side of Elysium Planitia, the plain NASA was aiming for. Project leader Tom Hoffman said the probe had landed near the center of the target but that NASA had not yet completed the final calculations.

He said that it was hard to say on the first photo if there were any nearby slopes, but that he seemed to have gotten the "parking lot" flat and smooth that he was hoping for .

United States museums, planetariums and libraries have organized observational nights to follow the events at the JPL. The cover of NASA TV was also broadcast on the giant screen of Times Square in New York, where the crowd huddled under umbrellas in the rain.

The international $ 1 billion mission includes a mechanized mole headed by Germany that will dig a depth of 5 meters to measure the planet's internal heat. Nothing has ever dug deeper into Mars than several inches. The lander also has a seismometer of French manufacture to measure earthquakes, if they exist at our smaller neighbor, geologically quieter.

Another experiment will calculate the oscillation of Mars to reveal the composition of the planet's nucleus.

The 800-pound InSight (360 kilograms) is stationary and will work in the same place for the next two years, the duration of a Martian year. His first job was to get a quick picture. The next task was the deployment of its solar panels. NASA wanted to wait 16 minutes for the dust to settle before attempting this; Monday night we were waiting for news of the situation.

Senior scientist, Bruce Banerdt, warned that he would be acting from a slow motion mission. Instruments will need to be configured and tuned. He added that he did not expect to receive a flow of reliable data before the end of next spring and that the entire mission might need real resources.

"It really depends on the benevolence of Mars, the number of marsquakes that she sends us," Banerdt said Sunday. "The more marsquakes there are, the better … we love this earthquake, and so the more it shook, the better you could see inside."

The well-preserved interior of Mars provides insights into what the Earth might look like since its formation, 4.5 billion years ago, according to Banerdt. While Earth is seismic, Mars "decided to rest on its laurels" after its formation, he said.

By examining and mapping inside Mars, scientists hope to understand why the rocky planets of our solar system have proved so different and why Earth has become a refuge for life.

Still, there are no life sensors onboard InSight. This will be part of NASA's next mission, the March 2020 Rover, which will roam in search of rocks that may contain traces of ancient life.

The question of whether life ever existed in the wet and wet past of Mars is what prevents NASA from bringing back the sun to the fourth rock.

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