[ad_1]
Like any respectful creation, NASA's Mars InSight lander promised to phone his home as soon as he arrived at his destination safely on November 26th.
But it will not be a detailed conversation, and NASA engineers can not really know when the call will come – nor even if it will come from the InSight lander itself. In total, the team has developed five distinct lines of communication that will help landlords track the progress of their creation on the red planet.
InSight itself can produce two types of simple signals. During the landing process, it will produce constant radio wave tones, which are affected by the very process of landing. Their frequency will change, for example, when the spacecraft deploys its parachute and slows down quickly. [NASA’s Mars InSight Lander: 10 Surprising Facts]
Artistic representation of the signal of InSight, in green, converted by the MarCO in its own signal, in blue. Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech
Once landed, InSight will produce two more beacon signals, spaced 7 minutes apart and in different wavelengths. If the engineers manage to capture the second of these two signals, which is particularly powerful, they will be particularly pleased because it means that InSight is probably in good shape. Nevertheless, it will still be hours before we know if the LG has deployed its solar panels without incident.
But since this is interplanetary movement, the engineers have developed three alternative ways to hear InSight, relying on other spacecraft on Mars. The tiny companions of InSight, the two cubesats of the Mars Cube One project, or MarCO, will arrive on the red planet with the LG.
MarCO engineers hope they will have the ability to tell the whole landing process for those of us on Earth, including relaying the first photo of InSight. But since MarCO satellites are the first cubesats to ever have left Earth's orbit, the team can not be sure of working as expected.
Fortunately, two older and more agitated NASA spacecraft in orbit around Mars will also be on hand to report on this big day: the Mars reconnaissance Orbiter and the 2001 Odyssey. The first will be particularly useful for tracking the entire landing process turns out that something has gone wrong, while the second will confirm that the LG 's solar panels have properly opened up.
Of course, the problem we have with so many different means of communication – and with Mars located at 91 million kilometers (InSight) – is that even if everything went smoothly, we, the humans, would get updates. day as events unfold. .
NASA can know right away that InSight has made it or it can take hours. We will just have to wait and see.
Email Meghan Bartels at [email protected] or follow her. @meghanbartels. follow us @Spacedotcom and Facebook. Original article on Space.com.
[ad_2]
Source link
