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InSight took off from Vandenberg Air Force Base in Central California on May 5, 2018
ABOVE THE VIDEO: NASA's exploration of the interior, based on seismic exploration, geodesy and heat transport (InSight) is on track for a smooth touchdown on the surface of the red planet on November 26, Monday who will follow Thanksgiving. But it will not be a relaxing weekend between turkey remnants, football and shopping for the InSight mission team.
(NASA) – NASA's interior exploration of NASA's interior, using spacecraft of seismic investigations, geodesy and heat transport (InSight), is expected to hit the surface of the red planet on November 26th.
But it will not be a relaxing weekend between turkey remnants, football and shopping for the InSight mission team.
Engineers will closely monitor the flow of InSight's health and trajectory data, and follow Martian weather reports to determine if the team needs to make final adjustments before landing in five days.
"Landing on Mars is difficult. It takes skill, concentration and years of preparation, "said Thomas Zurbuchen, deputy administrator of the Science Mission Directorate at NASA headquarters in Washington.
"Keeping in mind our ambitious goal of sending humans to the surface of the moon and then to Mars, I know that our incredible team of scientists and engineers – the only one in the world to have successfully landed a spacecraft on the Martian surface – will do everything in their power. can successfully land InSight on the red planet. "
InSight, the first in-depth study mission to Mars, took off from Vandenberg Air Force Base in central California on May 5, 2018.
Artist's impression of the entry, descent and landing of NASA InSight on Mars, scheduled for November 26, 2018. (NASA image)
It was a safe flight to Mars, and the engineers like it that way. They will be very excited when InSight reaches the top of the Martian atmosphere at 12,300 mph (19,800 km / h) and will slow down to 5 mph (8 km / h) – about the speed of human jogging – before its three legs touch the Martian soil. This extreme deceleration must occur in just under seven minutes.
"There is a reason why engineers call a Mars landing" seven minutes of terror, "said Rob Grover, head of InSight's entry, descent and disembarkation (EDL), based at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.
"We can not manipulate the landing, so we have to rely on the controls we have preprogrammed into the spacecraft. We spent years testing our plans, learning more landings on Mars and studying all the conditions that Mars can impose on us. And we will remain vigilant until InSight settles in its Elysium Planitia area. "
One way for engineers to quickly confirm the activities that InSight has carried out during these seven minutes of terror is if the CubeSat experimental mission, called Mars Cube One (MarCO), returns InSight data to Earth almost in real time when their flight over November. 26. The two MarCO satellites (A and B) are making good progress towards their rendezvous point and their radios have already passed their first deep space tests.
"By surviving this trip, the two MarCO satellites have made a giant leap for CubeSats," said Anne Marinan, system engineer at MarCO, based at JPL. "And now, we are preparing for the next test of the MarCOs – serving as a possible model for a new type of interplanetary communications relay."
The illustration of this artist shows four NASA Martian rovers (from left to right): Sojourner, Spirit and Opportunity and Curiosity. The image also shows the future rover March 2020 and a human explorer. (Image of NASA)
If all goes well, the MarCOs may take a few seconds to receive and format the data before sending it back to Earth at the speed of light. That would mean that engineers from JPL and another Lockheed Martin Space team in Denver would be able to tell what the LG did during the EDL day about eight minutes after the end of the activities. ; InSight.
Without MarCO, the InSight team would have to wait several hours before the technical data reaches them via the main communication channels, namely the relays via Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and Mars Odyssey from NASA.
Once the engineers realized that the satellite had landed safely to confirm this milestone and that the InSight solar panels had been properly deployed, the team could engage in the careful process of deploying the scientific instruments, which lasted three months.
"Landing on Mars is exciting, but scientists look forward to the day after the arrival of InSight," said Lori Glaze, Acting Director of the Planetary Science Division at NASA headquarters. "Once InSight is installed on the Red Planet and its instruments are deployed, it will begin to collect valuable information about the structure of deep inside Mars – information that will help us understand the formation and the evolution of all rocky planets, including the one we call. House."
NASA's scientific missions surround the Earth, the Sun, the Moon, Mars and many other destinations in our solar system, including spacecraft that look even further into our universe. The scientific fleet describes the extent of NASA's activities and describes the path traveled by our missions in the solar system. (Image of NASA)
"The previous missions have not exceeded the targets on Mars," added Sue Smrekar, assistant principal investigator of the InSight mission at JPL. "InSight scientists can not wait to explore the heart of Mars."
JPL manages InSight for NASA's Science Mission Directorate. InSight is part of NASA's Discovery program, run by the agency's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. Lockheed Martin Space in Denver built the InSight spacecraft, including its cruiser and landing gear, and supports probe operations for the mission.
A number of European partners, including the National Center for Space Studies (CNES) and the German Aerospace Center (DLR), support the InSight mission.
This map shows the temperature of the Martian atmosphere at about fifteen kilometers from the surface. The data was taken on November 18, 2018, about a week before the NASA InSight lander was scheduled to touch the Martian surface. The temperature tells the scientists of the mission the activity of dust in the atmosphere. The map shows a range of latitudes, with temperatures descending clearly near the North Pole of the planet. The landing sites of various NASA landers on Mars are presented in context. (Image of NASA)
CNES provided the instrument "Seismic Experience for Interior Structures" (SEIS), with important contributions from the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research (MPS) in Swiss Institute of Technology (ETH) in Switzerland, Imperial College and the University of Oxford in the United States. Kingdom and JPL.
DLR has provided the Heat Flow and Physical Properties Package (HP3) instrument, with significant contributions from the Space Research Center (CBK) of the Polish Academy of Sciences and Astronika in Poland. . The Spanish Centro de Astrobiología (CAB) provided the wind sensors.
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