InSight: Mars Landing

[Waspie_Dwarf]

NASA InSight Team on Course for Mars Touchdown

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NASA's Mars Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport (InSight) spacecraft is on track for a soft touchdown on the surface of the Red Planet on Nov. 26, the Monday after Thanksgiving. But it's not going to be a relaxing weekend of turkey leftovers, football and shopping for the InSight mission team. Engineers will be keeping a close eye on the stream of data indicating InSight's health and trajectory, and monitoring Martian weather reports to figure out if the team needs to make any final adjustments in preparation for landing, only five days away.

  Read More: NASA

 

[Waspie_Dwarf]

NASA InSight Landing on Mars: Milestones

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On Nov. 26, NASA’s InSight spacecraft will blaze through the Martian atmosphere and attempt to set a lander gently on the surface of the Red Planet in less time than it takes to hard-boil an egg. InSight’s entry, descent and landing (EDL) team, based at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, along with another part of the team at Lockheed Martin Space in Denver, have pre-programmed the spacecraft to perform a specific sequence of activities to make this possible.

  Read More: NASA

 

[Waspie_Dwarf]

ESA lends a hand at Mars

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The Red Planet will receive its first new resident in six years on Monday when NASA’s InSight lander touches down, aiming to investigate the Martian interior. ESA ground stations and orbiters are playing a crucial role in helping the mission get to its destination and deliver its data back to Earth.

On 26 November, NASA’s robotic science lab will land on the dusty Martian surface around 20:00 UTC (21:00 CET).

  Read More: ESA

 

[AllPossible]

Wow 12,500mph to 5mph is insane. Very impressive if that can be pulled off 

[Waspie_Dwarf]

23 minutes ago, AllPossible said:

Wow 12,500mph to 5mph is insane. Very impressive if that can be pulled off 

It sounds insane but it's what every astronaut returning from the ISS experiences.

[Jon the frog]

Exciting !

[AllPossible]

9 hours ago, Waspie_Dwarf said:

It sounds insane but it's what every astronaut returning from the ISS experiences.

Don't they glide back to earth in the shuttle at a decently high speed? This sounds like 12.5K (Mach16) to 5mph in 7 min sounds more difficult considering there's no humans landing but Your right that even astronauts are experiencing intense speeds as well but probably in a longer amount of time 

Edited November 25, 2018 by AllPossible

[Still Waters]

Related:

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InSight Diary: The silence of space

Prof Tom Pike from Imperial College London is part of the science team on the US-led InSight mission to Mars. His group has supplied tiny seismometers that will enable the Nasa lander to detect "Marsquakes", which should reveal the internal structure of the Red Planet. Here, Prof Pike tells us what happened when his team switched on its sensor system during InSight's 6-month cruise to Mars.

InSight is now just two days from Mars, closing in at more than 6,000mph. But it's not breaking a sweat.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-46332684

 

[Waspie_Dwarf]

On 11/25/2018 at 3:43 AM, AllPossible said:

Don't they glide back to earth in the shuttle at a decently high speed?

Not any more. There have been no shuttle flights since July 2011.

The shuttle touched down at a little over 200mph, however it still had to decelerate from an orbital speed of 17,500 mph.

Since the shuttle was retired all human spaceflight has occurred using either the Russian Soyuz spacecraft (which has been the only way for crews to get to and from the ISS for the last seven years) or the Chinese Shenzhou spacecraft (which is based on the Soyuz). These also have to decelerate from 17,000 mph and, using a combination of parachutes and retrorockets, touch down at around 5 mph... so, as I said, what the InSight lander will experience is what the ISS crews experience.

On 11/25/2018 at 3:43 AM, AllPossible said:

This sounds like 12.5K (Mach16) to 5mph in 7 min sounds more difficult considering there's no humans landing

The human crew is largely irrelevant as the landing process for Soyuz is automated.

The difficult part is not the shedding of the high speed, friction with the atmosphere during (re-)entry will do most of that, it is losing the last few hundred miles an hour. What makes landing on Mars hard is it's thin atmosphere, This makes parachutes far less effective than they are on Earth. Parachutes for Martian landings have to be large and deployed at supersonic speeds in order for them to slow the spacecraft down sufficiently. Most parachutes would simply rip under these circumstances, so NASA have had to put a lot of research into their parachute design.

Soyuz (and Shenzhou) also fire retrorockets, in the last few seconds before touch down, to ensure safe landing speeds. InSight will need to fire it's landing rockets for a lot longer to ensure a safe landing. Failure of the Soyuz (or Shenzhou) retros would mean a bumpy, uncomfortable but survivable landing for the crew. Failure of InSights landing rockets would mean destruction of the lander.

[Waspie_Dwarf]

Landing Day for InSight

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In mere hours, NASA's InSight spacecraft will complete its seven-month journey to Mars. It will have cruised 301,223,981 miles (484,773,006 km) at a top speed of 6,200 mph (10,000 kph).

Engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, which leads the mission, are preparing for the spacecraft to enter the Martian atmosphere, descend with a parachute and retrorockets, and touch down tomorrow at around noon PST (3 p.m. EST). InSight — which stands for Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport — will be the first mission to study the deep interior of Mars.

  Read More: NASA

 

[AllPossible]

4 hours ago, Waspie_Dwarf said:

Not any more. There have been no shuttle flights since July 2011.

The shuttle touched down at a little over 200mph, however it still had to decelerate from an orbital speed of 17,500 mph.

Since the shuttle was retired all human spaceflight has occurred using either the Russian Soyuz spacecraft (which has been the only way for crews to get to and from the ISS for the last seven years) or the Chinese Shenzhou spacecraft (which is based on the Soyuz). These also have to decelerate from 17,000 mph and, using a combination of parachutes and retrorockets, touch down at around 5 mph... so, as I said, what the InSight lander will experience is what the ISS crews experience.

The human crew is largely irrelevant as the landing process for Soyuz is automated.

The difficult part is not the shedding of the high speed, friction with the atmosphere during (re-)entry will do most of that, it is losing the last few hundred miles an hour. What makes landing on Mars hard is it's thin atmosphere, This makes parachutes far less effective than they are on Earth. Parachutes for Martian landings have to be large and deployed at supersonic speeds in order for them to slow the spacecraft down sufficiently. Most parachutes would simply rip under these circumstances, so NASA have had to put a lot of research into their parachute design.

Soyuz (and Shenzhou) also fire retrorockets, in the last few seconds before touch down, to ensure safe landing speeds. InSight will need to fire it's landing rockets for a lot longer to ensure a safe landing. Failure of the Soyuz (or Shenzhou) retros would mean a bumpy, uncomfortable but survivable landing for the crew. Failure of InSights landing rockets would mean destruction of the lander.

Thanks didn't know that. Interesting they have to use special parachutes and rockets just be safe.

[Waspie_Dwarf]

InSight in Position for Mars Landing

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UPDATED AT 10:45 a.m. PDT (1:45 EST) on Nov. 26. Before atmospheric entry, the InSight team determined that no additional changes were necessary to the algorithm that safely guides the spacecraft to the surface. In addition, the fourth paragraph has been updated with information about the trajectory correction maneuver conducted by the mission team on the afternoon of Nov. 25.

  Read More: NASA

 

[Waspie_Dwarf]

NASA TV is covering EDL - Entry, descent and landing, live: https://www.nasa.gov/nasalive

[L.A.T.1961]

So far, so good.

[L.A.T.1961]

Point of maximum deceleration, 8G, passed.

[L.A.T.1961]

Touch down. 

[Waspie_Dwarf]

Touch down confirmed, InSight is on Mars.

[Waspie_Dwarf]

Before today the record for Mars was 17 attempted landings, only 7 sucesses. Congratulations NASA ans JPL for making it 8 from 18,

Now the wait to find out if InSight has deployed it;s solar panels. It needs to wait for a few minutes for the dust from landing to settle before it attempts this,

Edited November 26, 2018 by Waspie_Dwarf
typo.

[L.A.T.1961]

Will we have an image ?

[Waspie_Dwarf]

InSight has transmitted it's first image.

[L.A.T.1961]

And an image, must be a record.  

[Waspie_Dwarf]

1 minute ago, L.A.T.1961 said:

Will we have an image ?

Oh yes.

[Waspie_Dwarf]

Here is that first image:

The protective dust cover is still on, so the image is not as clear as those that will follow. It shows the surface, the horizon and the sky and also the debris kicked up by the landing.

Edited November 26, 2018 by Waspie_Dwarf
changed image link to a larger version.

[TaintlessMetals]

Has anyone else noticed the discrepancies involving the first pictures sent back by the lander? If you watched the livestream you could see the monitor inside mission control when the first image was processed and put on a large screen at the front of the room. The picture clearly showed a stunning blue sky with brown ground, yet the picture actually released by NASA on the social media accounts shows a different landscape, a red/Brown atmosphere and a similar dirt. Idk maybe someone could elaborate upon this further.

[Myles]

1 hour ago, Waspie_Dwarf said:

Before today the record for Mars was 17 attempted landings, only 7 sucesses. Congratulations NASA ans JPL for making it 8 from 18,

Now the wait to find out if InSight has deployed it;s solar panels. It needs to wait for a few minutes for the dust from landing to settle before it attempts this,

 

Since 2000, the success rate has been very good.   Especially for the US.