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posted by martyb on Thursday November 29 2018, @10:00PM   Printer-friendly

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]:

CNN

The Guardian

MARS InSight Mission

[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


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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by richtopia on Friday November 30 2018, @02:08AM (2 children)

    by richtopia (3160) on Friday November 30 2018, @02:08AM (#768104) Homepage Journal

    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]

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 30 2018, @05:07AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 30 2018, @05:07AM (#768174)

    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

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 30 2018, @05:51AM (#768182)

      You wanna know whether the rock compo is 58 vs 55 % dolomite?