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
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[Mission Page]: InSight Mars Lander
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, @11:36PM
Thanks, that is the best pic of mars I've seen.