![]() InSight measured about 6 meters (20 feet) wide including its solar panels and about a meter (3 feet) tall. InSight's design was based on NASA's Phoenix lander, with a robotic arm and dual solar arrays that powered the spacecraft's instruments. InSight had been operating in an extended mission until December 2022, listening for Marsquakes to help us learn more about what lies beneath the Martian surface. One of InSight's primary science instruments, a heat-flow probe known as the mole, failed to work because the soil at the landing site was different than predicted. Its mission was to learn more about how Mars' interior is layered so scientists could compare Mars with what we know about other planets and Earth. ![]() Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport, launched to Mars in May 2018 and landed later that year in November. NASA's InSight spacecraft, an acronym for Interior Exploration using Seismic Why did this happen on Mars but not Earth? To learn why our planet took such a different evolutionary path and what the possibilities are for other worlds including Earth-like exoplanets, we need to learn about Mars' interior. Then, Mars lost its magnetic field and the Sun stripped away its atmosphere. You may also view it on NASA TV at /live.Space exploration missions to Mars have taught us that for at least some periods of time 3 to 4 billion years ago, Mars had conditions that could have supported life as we know it. Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex will be live streaming the landing at several locations in the visitor complex. You can learn about them more inside our NASA Now exhibit. If successful, Wall-E and Eva will offer a new communication capability to Earth. During their flyby of Mars, they may communicate the status of InSight’s landing in as quickly as 10-20 minutes. Nicknamed Wall-E and Eva after the 2008 Pixar film, they are the first CubeSat spacecraft to fly to deep space. Launched along with InSight, but flying separately, are two CubeSats, Mars Cube One (MarCO) A and B. To prepare for the challenges of landing, NASA developed a thicker heat shield, a stronger parachute and included 12 descent thrusters to slow the spacecraft down. This sequence is nicknamed the “seven minutes of terror,” since many crucial tasks will be performed by the pre-programmed flight computer. The lnSight spacecraft’s heavy mass and high elevation landing site mean even less time to slow down.įrom that point, it takes seven minutes for the spacecraft to reach the ground. InSight will enter the Martian atmosphere going 12,300 mph/5.5 km per second, or six times the speed of a high-velocity bullet. Mars’ thin atmosphere means less friction to slow the spacecraft down. The landing is one of the most difficult parts of the mission. First to detect quakes on another planet.First to use a seismometer directly on the Martian surface.First to use a robotic arm to grasp instruments on another planet.First mission to probe into the Martian surface as deep as 16 feet/ 5 meters.InSight will achieve many firsts during its two-year mission. All of this information could help in the search for exoplanets similar to Earth. By comparing what we know about the Earth’s core to Mars’ core, we may also learn why these two planets evolved so differently. InSight may help us learn how rocky planets in our solar system formed more than four billion years ago, such as our Earth and Moon. ![]() It will gather data about the planet’s internal activity using a variety of methods, including detecting the causes of Marsquakes, studying heat flow and using seismic waves to determine the depth of the planet’s layers (crust, mantle and core) and what they are made of. Appropriately so, since this is the first mission to study the deep interior of Mars. The definition of the word InSight is to see the inner nature of an object. It launched from California on May 5, 2018, and will work on Mars until November 2020. The spacecraft will attempt a touch down on the Red Planet around 3 pm EST at the planned landing site, Elysium Planitia. After a six and a half month journey, NASA’s InSight ( Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport) spacecraft arrives at Mars on November 26, 2018. ![]()
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