| Title | MarCO CubeSat Takes Image of Mars From 12.8 Million Kilometers Away | |
| Date | Tuesday October 23 2018, @12:24PM | |
| Author | martyb | |
| Topic | ||
| from the super-twin-powers-activate! dept. | ||
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
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printed from SoylentNews, MarCO CubeSat Takes Image of Mars From 12.8 Million Kilometers Away on 2023-07-05 11:30:44