SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Tiny Cubesat Snaps Photo of Mars for 1st Time Ever
A tiny Mars-approaching spacecraft has snapped a photo of its target, marking the first time that a cubesat has ever captured an image of the Red Planet. One of NASA's two briefcase-size Mars Cube One (MarCO) cubesats acquired the image on Oct. 2, when it was about 8 million miles (12.8 million kilometers) from the Red Planet, agency officials said.
The MarCO twins — officially known as MarCO-A and MarCO-B, but nicknamed "Eve" and "Wall-E," respectively, after characters in the 2008 Pixar film "Wall-E" — launched with NASA's InSight Mars lander in early May. The main goal of the MarCO mission is to prove that cubesats, whose operations to date have been restricted to Earth orbit, can indeed make the long trek to the Red Planet. Their success could help pave the way for much greater activity in deep space by small, low-cost spacecraft, mission team members have said.
[...] MarCO-B (Wall-E) took the newly released image to test the exposure settings of a wide-angle camera, NASA officials added in the same statement.
The MarCO duo will attempt to relay home to Earth data from InSight during the lander's Mars-touchdown attempt, which will take place on Nov. 26. But this is not a crucial duty; other NASA spacecraft, such as the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, will do this work as well.
Previously: NASA Launches InSight Mission to Study the Interior of Mars
CubeSats -- En Route to Mars with InSight -- Snap Another "Pale Blue Dot" Image
NASA's MarCO CubeSats Perform Trajectory Correction Maneuvers Towards Mars
Related: NASA to Focus on Small Satellites
NASA Selects CubeSat and SmallSat Mission Concept Studies
(Score: 4, Funny) by inertnet on Tuesday October 23 2018, @02:58PM (4 children)
Mars defenses apparently have already formed a dotted circle around the planet, but we all know that when attacked by cubes, resistance is futile.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Tuesday October 23 2018, @06:59PM (2 children)
Hey, don't knock Mars defenses: They took out a bunch of the Soviet landers, Observer, the Climate Orbiter, Polar Lander, and Deep Space 2.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 5, Funny) by bob_super on Tuesday October 23 2018, @07:12PM (1 child)
They know how to play the long game: Martian trolls have been for many years convincing the USA to resist the metric system, just so they could blame it on one orbiter disappearance.
Never play chess against Martians.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Thexalon on Tuesday October 23 2018, @07:40PM
True, I wasn't including their covert ops efforts, which also managed to destroy a number of these scouting vehicles before they'd even left Earth's gravity well.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Bot on Tuesday October 23 2018, @11:41PM
I also intercepted transmissions which point to a martian infiltrate here on earth. A most stupid strategy, as martians have orange hair and small hands and breath CO2, where the fuck are you going to hide one.
Account abandoned.