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PASADENA, Calif. – NASA's latest Mars robot has already captured a photo of its rusty and dusty house.
The lander InSight landed on the red planet today (November 26) shortly before 3 pm. EST (2000 GMT) and transmitted his first image of the surface a few minutes later. (You can see other amazing photos of the March InSight landing day here.)
"Here it is!" Rob Manning, chief engineer here at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), said during a live landing commentary today. "There is the horizon there, the bluish sky.This is a part of the bridge of the LG in the left front." [NASA’s InSight Mars Lander: Full Coverage]
The photo is dotted with black dots – probably dust particles collected during InSight's heartbreaking descent through the Martian atmosphere, Manning said. The future InSight images will be much clearer, once the dust cover is removed, he added.
This photo is the first image of Mars taken by NASA InSight Mars lander after his successful landing in the Plains of Elysium Planitia on November 26, 2018. The dust seen on the image is on a jacket protecting the camera.
Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech
The image was sent back to the control of the mission with the help of two Mars Cube One (MarCO) satellites the size of a briefcase, which were launched with InSight last May. The MarCO duo was tasked with showing that cubesats could explore interplanetary space. NASA hoped that the tiny probes would also be able to relay the data from the LG at today 's entry, descent and landing activities.
The mission was therefore very successful for MarCO-A and MarCO-B, who flew over the red planet today as Insight flew into the atmosphere.
The stationary InSight lander is now installed in a relatively flat-land equatorial plain called Elysium Planitia, about 550 kilometers from Gale Crater, where the NASA Curiosity robot landed in August 2012. But InSight team members will be on stems and needles until at least 8:35 pm EST today (13:13 GMT on November 27th); It is as soon as possible for them to learn that the InSight solar panels have deployed as planned. (This news must be relayed via NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter, which will not be in position before that time.)
InSight aims to conduct the first ever in-depth investigation into the interior of the Martian region. To achieve this, the LG uses a burr thermal probe and a suite of three seismometers, which will measure tiny "earthquakes". Mission team members will also follow the oscillations of the Mars rotation axis with the help of InSight communication equipment.
These observations should allow mission scientists to map in 3D the inner structure of the red planet – information that should in turn inform the formation and evolution of rocky planets in general, NASA officials said. .
The attention to the Martian subsoil explains why InSight landed on the flat and boring Elysium Planitia: it offered a relatively safe landing zone and its rarity of visible boulders augur well for the ability of the thermal probe to sink deep in the ground (up to 16 feet). or 5 meters).
And the first image of the LG offers good news in that direction.
"It looks like there are not a lot of rocks in the field of view," Manning said.
InSight must deposit the thermal probe and the seismometers on the Martian surface. This deployment will probably not take place until two to three months, said the mission team members. It will take about a month to calibrate the equipment used on the red planet.
The mission of InSight, worth $ 850 million, is expected to last nearly two years on Earth. Team members said it may take a little longer for the LG to gather enough data to meet its mission objectives.
"InSight" is an abbreviation of "Indoor Exploration Using Seismic Surveys, Geodesy and Heat Transport".
Mike Wall's book on the search for extraterrestrial life, "Over there"(Grand Central Publishing, 2018, illustrated by Karl Tate) is out now. Follow him on Twitter @michaeldwall. follow us @Spacedotcomor Facebook. Originally published on Space.com.
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