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NASA InSight Landing a Success

InSight will commence on a two-year mission to study the deep interior of Mars to learn how all celestial bodies with rocky surfaces formed.

NASA's InSight Mars lander acquired this image using its robotic arm-mounted, Instrument Deployment Camera (IDC). This image was acquired on November 27, 2018, Sol 1 where the local mean solar time for the image exposures was 13:32:45. (Image source: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

NASA  's Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport ( InSight  ) lander successfully touched down on Mars after an almost seven-month, 300-million-mile (458-million-kilometer) journey from Earth. InSight launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base  in California May 5, 2018. The lander touched down Monday, Nov. 26, near Mars' equator on the western side of a flat, smooth expanse of lava called Elysium Planitia, with a signal affirming a completed landing sequence at approximately noon Pacific Standard Time (3 p.m. Eastern Standard Time).

With the harrowing approach and landing complete, InSight will commence on a two-year mission to study the deep interior of Mars to learn how all celestial bodies with rocky surfaces, including Earth and the Moon, formed  .

This is the first image taken by NASA’s InSight lander on the surface of Mars. The instrument context camera (ICC) mounted below the lander deck obtained this image on November 26, 2018, shortly after landing. The transparent lens cover was still in place to protect the lens from any dust kicked up during landing. (Image source: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

"Today, we successfully landed on Mars for the eighth time in human history,” says NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine. “InSight will study the interior of Mars and will teach us valuable science as we prepare to send astronauts to the Moon and later to Mars. This accomplishment represents the ingenuity of America and our international partners and it serves as a testament to the dedication and perseverance of our team. The best of NASA is yet to come, and it is coming soon.”

The landing signal was relayed to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory  (JPL) in Pasadena, California, via one of NASA's two small experimental Mars Cube One  (MarCO) CubeSats, which launched on the same rocket as InSight and followed the lander to Mars. They are the first CubeSats sent into deep space. After successfully carrying out numerous communications and in-flight navigation experiments, the twin MarCOs were set in position to receive transmissions during InSight's entry, descent, and landing.

InSight will operate on the surface for one Martian year, plus 40 Martian days, or sols, until November 24, 2020. The mission objectives of the two small MarCOs which relayed InSight’s telemetry was completed after their Martian flyby.

William Kucinski  is content editor at SAE International, Aerospace Products Group in Warrendale, Pa. Previously, he worked as a writer at the NASA Safety Center in Cleveland, Ohio and was responsible for writing the agency’s System Failure Case Studies. His interests include literally anything that has to do with space, past and present military aircraft, and propulsion technology.

Contact him regarding any article or collaboration ideas by e-mail at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

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    Transcript

    00:00:00 InSight Landing on Mars Rob Manning: Although we've done it before, landing on Mars is hard. And this mission is no different. The process to get from the top of the atmosphere of Mars to the surface we call "entry, descent, and landing" or EDL. It takes thousands of steps to go from the top of the atmosphere to the surface. And each one of them has to work perfectly to be a successful mission.

    00:00:28 The process starts well above the atmosphere of Mars. The cruise stage faces the Sun. It also has its radio antenna which faces Earth. But now we don't need the cruise stage. Its job is done. The next step, just 7 minutes before arriving to the top of the Mars atmosphere, is to separate the cruise stage. Before you hit the top of the atmosphere though, the space capsule has to orient itself

    00:00:56 so that the heat shield is precisely facing the atmosphere. Now the fun begins. The vehicle is moving at nearly 13,000 miles an hour. But it's hitting the top of the atmosphere at a very shallow angle. 12 degrees. Any steeper, the vehicle will hit the thicker part of the atmosphere and will melt and burn up. Any shallower, the vehicle will bounce off

    00:01:19 the atmosphere of Mars. At the very top of the atmosphere it's about 70 miles above the surface of Mars. And the air is starting to get thicker and thicker and thicker. As it does that, the temperature in the heat shield gets well over a thousand degrees centigrade-- enough to melt steel. Over the next 2 minutes, the vehicle decelerates at a back-breaking 12 Earth G's. From 13,000 miles an hour to about 1,000 miles an hour.

    00:01:44 At about 10 miles above the surface of Mars a supersonic parachute is launched out of the back of the vehicle. Fifteen seconds after the parachute inflates it's time to get rid of the heat shield. Six pyrotechnic devices fire simultaneously allowing the heat shield to fall and tumble away from the vehicle, exposing the lander to the surface of Mars. Ten seconds after the heat shield is dropped,

    00:02:09 three pyrotechnically deployed legs are released and locked for landing. About a minute later the landing radar is turned on, sending pulses toward the surface of Mars as the vehicle starts to try to measure how high it is above the surface and how fast it's going. At about a mile above the surface of Mars the lander falls away from the backshell and lights its engines.

    00:02:33 And very quickly the vehicle must rotate out of the way so that the parachute and the backshell doesn't come down to hit it. The last thing that has to happen is that on the moment of contact the engines have to shut down immediately. If they don't, the vehicle will tip over. So if all the steps of entry, descent, and landing happen perfectly

    00:02:57 and we are safely on the surface of Mars, we'll be ready to do some exciting new science. InSight mission landing November 26, 2018 NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory California Institute of Technology

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