InSight, MarCO-A, MarCO-B - Atlas V 401 - Vandenberg SLC-3E - 05.05.2018 - 11:05 UTC

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Jeff Foust‏ @jeff_foust 52 мин. назад

NASA's Thomas Zurbuchen: going to Mars is really, really hard. Overall we're batting about .500 or less. [That's really, really good if you're a baseball player...]


49 мин. назад

Tom Hoffman, InSight project manager: have one more trajectory correction maneuver to go, but looking good enough we may be able to skip it.


36 мин. назад

Rob Grover, InSight EDL lead: weather conditions have been "very stable" at the landing site over the last month, with no dust storms. Should be a "very plain" day Monday, with a temp. about 4˚F.


35 мин. назад

Grover: we'll make a decision end of the day Friday if we need that last trajectory correction maneuver, which would be Sunday.


20 мин. назад

Asked if there are plans for any extended mission for the MarCO cubesats (which will serve as relays during EDL for InSight as they fly by Mars.) Focus for now is on that relay mission, but there have been discussions about what's possible that will be considered afterwards.

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Jeff Foust‏ @jeff_foust 3 мин. назад

Insight is "kind of a laid-back, slow-motion mission," says PI Bruce Banerdt. Will be 2-3 months before the main instruments are up and running because of the time needed to deploy them.

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Mars Insight Engineering Mission Briefing

Space Videos

Опубликовано: 21 нояб. 2018 г.

Engineers from NASA's Mars Insight mission discuss the engineering that will be taking place during the entry and landing of Insight on Mars, set for November 26th 2018.

(48:54)

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Mars Insight Science Mission Briefing

Space Videos

Опубликовано: 21 нояб. 2018 г.

Scientists from NASA's Mars Insight mission discuss the science obejctives that will be taking place during the entry and landing of Insight on Mars, set for November 26th 2018.

(48:27)

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NASA InSight: Engineering a Mars Lander

NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Трансляция началась 3 часа назад

Original Air Date: Wednesday, Nov. 21, 2018

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Prior to landing on the Red Planet NASA discusses the engineering that went into the InSight lander. Launched on May 5, InSight marks NASA's first Mars landing since the Curiosity rover in 2012. The landing will kick off a two-year mission in which InSight will become the first spacecraft to study Mars' deep interior. Its data also will help scientists understand the formation of all rocky worlds, including our own.

InSight is being followed to Mars by two miniature NASA spacecraft, jointly called Mars Cube One (MarCO), the first deep-space mission for CubeSats. If MarCO makes its planned Mars flyby, it will attempt to relay data from InSight as it enters the planet's atmosphere and lands.

InSight and MarCO flight controllers will monitor the spacecraft's entry, descent and landing from Mission Control at JPL.
 
Speakers include:

- Thomas Zurbuchen, Associate Administrator
- Lori Glaze, acting director of the Planetary Science Division, NASA Headquarters, Washington
- Bruce Banerdt, InSight principal investigator, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California
- Tom Hoffman, InSight project manager at JPL
- Sue Smrekar, InSight deputy principal investigator at JPL
- Tilman Spohn, Director of the Institute of Planetary Research of the German Aerospace
- Veronica McGregor, Media Relations Manager

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(2:06:47)

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https://blogs.nasa.gov/insight/2018/11/21/106/

NASA InSight Team on Course for Mars Touchdown

Tony Greicius
Posted Nov 21, 2018 at 3:37 pm


An artist's impression of NASA InSight's entry, descent and landing at Mars, scheduled for Nov. 26, 2018. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

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.

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"Landing on Mars is hard. It takes skill, focus and years of preparation," said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "Keeping in mind our ambitious goal to eventually send humans to the surface of the Moon and then Mars, I know that our incredible science and engineering team — the only in the world to have successfully landed spacecraft on the Martian surface — will do everything they can to successfully land InSight on the Red Planet."

InSight, the first mission to study the deep interior of Mars, blasted off from Vandenberg Air Force Base in Central California on May 5, 2018. It has been an uneventful flight to Mars, and engineers like it that way. They will get plenty of excitement when InSight hits the top of the Martian atmosphere at 12,300 mph (19,800 kph) and slows down to 5 mph (8 kph) — about human jogging speed — before its three legs touch down on Martian soil. That extreme deceleration has to happen in just under seven minutes.

"There's a reason engineers call landing on Mars 'seven minutes of terror,'" said Rob Grover, InSight's entry, descent and landing (EDL) lead, based at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. "We can't joystick the landing, so we have to rely on the commands we pre-program into the spacecraft. We've spent years testing our plans, learning from other Mars landings and studying all the conditions Mars can throw at us. And we're going to stay vigilant till InSight settles into its home in the Elysium Planitia region."

One way engineers may be able to confirm quickly what activities InSight has completed during those seven minutes of terror is if the experimental CubeSat mission known as Mars Cube One (MarCO) relays InSight data back to Earth in near-real time during their flyby on Nov. 26. The two MarCO spacecraft (A and B) are making good progress toward their rendezvous point, and their radios have already passed their first deep-space tests.

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https://blogs.nasa.gov/insight/2018/11/21/nasa-insight-landing-on-mars-milestones/

NASA InSight Landing on Mars: Milestones

Tony Greicius
Posted Nov 21, 2018 at 4:01 pm


This illustration shows a simulated view of NASA's InSight lander descending on its parachute toward the surface of Mars. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

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.

The following is a list of expected milestones for the spacecraft, assuming all proceeds exactly as planned and engineers make no final changes the morning of landing day. Some milestones will be known quickly only if the experimental Mars Cube One (MarCO) spacecraft are providing a reliable communications relay from InSight back to Earth. The primary communications path for InSight engineering data during the landing process is through NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and Mars Odyssey. Those data are expected to become available several hours after landing.

If all goes well, MarCO may take a few seconds to receive and format the data before sending it back to Earth at the speed of light. The one-way time for a signal to reach Earth from Mars is eight minutes and seven seconds on Nov. 26. Times listed below are in Earth Receive Time, or the time JPL Mission Control may receive the signals relating to these activities.

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• 11:40 a.m. PST (2:40 p.m. EST) – Separation from the cruise stage that carried the mission to Mars
• 11:41 a.m. PST (2:41 p.m. EST) – Turn to orient the spacecraft properly for atmospheric entry
• 11:47 a.m. PST (2:47 p.m. EST) – Atmospheric entry at about 12,300 mph (19,800 kph), beginning the entry, descent and landing phase
• 11:49 a.m. PST (2:49 p.m. EST) – Peak heating of the protective heat shield reaches about 2,700°F (about 1,500°C)
• 15 seconds later – Peak deceleration, with the intense heating causing possible temporary dropouts in radio signals
• 11:51 a.m. PST (2:51 p.m. EST) – Parachute deployment
• 15 seconds later – Separation from the heat shield
• 10 seconds later – Deployment of the lander's three legs
• 11:52 a.m. PST (2:52 p.m. EST) – Activation of the radar that will sense the distance to the ground
• 11:53 a.m. PST (2:53 p.m. EST) – First acquisition of the radar signal
• 20 seconds later – Separation from the back shell and parachute
• 0.5 second later – The retrorockets, or descent engines, begin firing
• 2.5 seconds later – Start of the "gravity turn" to get the lander into the proper orientation for landing
• 22 seconds later – InSight begins slowing to a constant velocity (from 17 mph to a constant 5 mph, or from 27 kph to 8 kph) for its soft landing
• 11:54 a.m. PST (2:54 p.m. EST) – Expected touchdown on the surface of Mars
• 12:01 p.m. PST (3:01 p.m. EST) – "Beep" from InSight's X-band radio directly back to Earth, indicating InSight is alive and functioning on the surface of Mars
• No earlier than 12:04 p.m. PST (3:04 p.m. EST), but possibly the next day – First image from InSight on the surface of Mars
• No earlier than 5:35 p.m. PST (8:35 p.m. EST) – Confirmation from InSight via NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter that InSight's solar arrays have deployed
  

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Jonathan McDowell‏Подлинная учетная запись @planet4589 9:02 - 22 нояб. 2018 г.

NASA's Insight Mars probe entered the Martian gravitational (Hill) sphere of influence a few minutes ago, at 1700 UTC Nov 22. It is on a Mars hyperbolic orbit with a periares in the Martian atmosphere, with entry scheduled for 1942 UTC Nov 26


9:03 - 22 нояб. 2018 г.

The MARCO-A and MARCO-B cubesats entered the Mars gravitational sphere about half an hour earlier, at about 1636 UTC. They will fly past the planet at a distance of about 2000 km, relaying entry data from Insight.