InSight mission to study deep beneath the Martian surface, lands 26 Nov 2018

[2hats]

Entry underway.

 

[2hats]

Altitude currently 130km, peak deceleration/heating in about 40 seconds. Telemetry drop out could occur.

e2a: blackout as expected.

 

[Limejuice]

Brake! Brake!

 

[2hats]

Deep breath...

 

[2hats]

8g, carrier detected

 

[2hats]

Parachute deploy coming up

 

[2hats]

Chute out, heat shield ejected.

 

[Limejuice]

Oh, yeah!

 

[Mumbles274]

| NASA

 

[2hats]

Descent radar on.

 

[2hats]

Radar confirmation of ground detection.

 

[2hats]

Backshield and chute separation. Gravity turn. 300 m.

 

[2hats]

Touchdown confirmed.

 

[Limejuice]

Mag-fucking-nificent!

 

[Limejuice]

Whenever you see rocketeers in tears of joy, you know your tax money was well spent.

 

[Mumbles274]

Nice

 

[2hats]

Image arrived. Dust on the lens cap as expected but good horizon line => landed in a reasonable orientation.

e2a: so awaiting X band health check.

 

[2hats]

X band carrier up.

 

[a_chap]

Strange red weed spotted....

 

[2hats]

Science telemetry received. All nominal.

 

[angusmcfangus]

Thanks space cadets really enjoyed that, thanks for the links and the excellent commentary.

 

[2hats]

So the next milestone should be confirmation of solar array deploy which will be relayed by Mars Odyssey around some time after midnight tonight (possibly with a new image, minus dust cap).

e2a: we might also see a descent image taken from MRO’s HiRISE camera in the coming hours.

 

[editor]

Brilliant news so far!

 

[Limejuice]

I love this stuff.

Well done, all the boffins involved.

I shall now drink to your success and future missions.

 

[Duncan2]

Bit disappointed tbh thought Mars was bigger than that.

 

[Yossarian]

Image arrived. Dust on the lens cap as expected but good horizon line => landed in a reasonable orientation.

e2a: so awaiting X band health check.

"Now if Sarah Ferguson can move her bum out of the way, we can get some photos of Mars..."

 

[2hats]

Digitally cleaned version of the first image to give some idea of what it looks like minus the dust cap.

 

[Limejuice]

Not too many rocks or boulders to mess up the site.

 

[2hats]

Not too many rocks or boulders to mess up the site.

The stones are small enough not to hinder the surface sciences experiments, it would appear. The one large rock visible won’t interfere. Bottom right of that image confirmed to be a lander footpad.

 

[2hats]

The solar arrays are confirmed as deployed and batteries are charging. A new image, this time from the instrument deployment camera, has arrived overnight. This shows the seismometer housing, grapple and folded arm (which will be used to place the SEIS seismometer and HP3 heat probe on the surface):

original:
It would appear they lucked out there somewhat, landing in a very smooth patch ideal for surface equipment deploy, in amongst much more heavily rock strewn areas.

Meanwhile the MarCO-B nanosat took this departing shot of Mars (InSight landing area in the upper right quadrant of the red planet as seen here):

Both of the nanosats are now heading away from Mars on heliocentric trajectories.