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NASA's InSight successfully lands on Mars after 'seven minutes of terror'
NASA's latest Mars lander, InSight, successfully touched down on the surface of the Red Planet this afternoon, surviving an intense plunge through the Martian atmosphere. It marks the eighth picture-perfect landing on Mars for NASA, adding to the space agency's impressive track record of putting spacecraft on the planet. And now, InSight's two-year mission has begun, one that entails listening for Marsquakes to learn about the world's interior.
InSight successfully lands on Mars
[Also Covered By]:
[Mission Page]: InSight Mars Lander
MarCO CubeSats Successfully Collect and Relay Data During Mars Flyby
Success of Tiny Mars Probes Heralds New Era of Deep-Space Cubesats
The era of the interplanetary cubesat has definitively dawned.
Less than seven months ago, no tiny spacecraft had ever voyaged beyond Earth orbit. But two briefcase-size probes just blazed a trail all the way to Mars, covering 301 million deep-space miles (484 million kilometers) and beaming home data from NASA's InSight lander during the latter's successful touchdown on the Red Planet Monday (Nov. 26).
The tiny NASA craft, known as MarCO-A and MarCO-B, even photographed Mars and helped researchers collect some data about the planet's atmosphere during their flyby, mission team members said.
Hopefully this new era will include flybys or orbits of all the large asteroids and dwarf planets (Eris, Sedna, Makemake, Haumea, etc.)
Previously: NASA to Focus on Small Satellites
NASA Selects CubeSat and SmallSat Mission Concept Studies
NASA's InSight Mars Mission Rescheduled for 2018
NASA Launches InSight Mission to Study the Interior of Mars
CubeSats -- En Route to Mars with InSight -- Snap Another "Pale Blue Dot" Image
MarCO CubeSat Takes Image of Mars From 12.8 Million Kilometers Away
Mars InSight Lander on Course for Monday Touchdown at 2:54 PM EST (19:54 UTC)
Watch Online | Landing – NASA's InSight Mars Lander
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 29 2018, @10:33PM (8 children)
Can they at least land one at the poles so we can see something besides a depressing endless expanse of rocks? Actually how about land near that area where there is a mountain that looks like a pyramid and hill that looks like a sphinx face? Not every mission needs to be like that but you would think one per decade could be pulled off.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday November 29 2018, @10:36PM
NASA will drill into the underground lake near the Martian south pole sometime before the year 2100.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 29 2018, @11:09PM (1 child)
Sorry, but Mars is rocks.
How about frosty rocks (Viking 2)? [reddit.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 29 2018, @11:36PM
Thanks, that is the best pic of mars I've seen.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by richtopia on Friday November 30 2018, @02:08AM (2 children)
Was the Phoenix lander not close enough? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix_(spacecraft) [wikipedia.org]
As InSight's Wikipedia article calls out, landers need to be near the equator for reliable solar power with minimal deviation between seasons. Perhaps another nuclear powered Curiosity or Viking lander could handle the long winter nights, but even then keeping components warm is a difficult engineering challenge.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/InSight#Landing_site [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 30 2018, @05:07AM (1 child)
I know it isnt because it get pics of ice or the supposed pyramids or sphinx faces?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 30 2018, @05:51AM
You wanna know whether the rock compo is 58 vs 55 % dolomite?
(Score: 2) by Webweasel on Friday November 30 2018, @11:01AM
Both of those turned out to be low resolution photos.
See how it really looks:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cydonia_(region_of_Mars)#/media/File:Face_on_Mars_with_Inset.jpg [wikipedia.org]
Priyom.org Number stations, Russian Military radio. "You are a bad, bad man. Do you have any other virtues?"-Runaway1956
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 30 2018, @10:26PM
Been there, done that [nasa.gov], like, 10 years ago! Where've you been, Johnson?
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Thursday November 29 2018, @11:02PM
So that was a terrifying InSight?
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by Snotnose on Friday November 30 2018, @01:11AM (1 child)
You can almost see the Martians trying to stay out of sight of the camera.
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 2) by Fnord666 on Friday November 30 2018, @03:56AM
If you look closely you can almost see their shadows.