posted 11-24-2018 11:05 AM               

Once InSight has touched down on the Martian surface, there are several opportunities for the lander to send back an image from the Martian surface. The cameras will have their covers on for each of these opportunities, which could obscure the images slightly. (The first images from the Curiosity rover included its dust cover.)

The lander has been programmed to take its first images several minutes after touchdown. The transmission of these images back to Earth will take longer. Engineering data are prioritized above images so it's possible that only part of an image (or none at all) will be transmitted in the first hours after landing. The image could be transmitted at various times via MarCO, MRO or Odyssey.

How InSight's First Images Could Be Returned to Earth:

• MarCO, the experimental pair of CubeSats, could relay back a first image just after the entry, descent and landing phase. If this happens, the image (or partial image) could be available within 10 to 20 minutes of touchdown.

• Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) could — but is unlikely to — relay back an image. MRO will prioritize relaying engineering data as it is setting over the Martian horizon. An image received via MRO wouldn’t be ready until late afternoon.

• Odyssey could — but is also unlikely to — relay back images during its first pass, which occurs several hours after InSight lands. At that time, it will receive a recording of the EDL data from InSight. It may not be able to transmit image data before it passes over the horizon; if it did, it would be available in the early evening.

• Odyssey will also pass over InSight the day after landing between 6 and 8 a.m. PST (9 and 11 a.m. EST) [14:00 and 16:00 UTC] on Nov. 27.

posted 11-26-2018 02:11 PM               

NASA's InSight Mars lander acquired this image of the area in front of the lander using its lander-mounted, Instrument Context Camera (ICC).

This image was acquired on November 26, 2018, Sol 0 of the InSight mission where the local mean solar time for the image exposures was 13:34:21. Each ICC image has a field of view of 124 x 124 degrees.

posted 11-26-2018 06:51 PM               

1. Viking 1 (1976)
   
2. Viking 2 (1976)
   
3. Mars Pathfinder (1997)
   
4. Mars Exploration Rover Spirit (2004)
   
5. Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity (2004)
   
6. Phoenix (2008)
   
7. Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity (2012)
   
8. InSight (2018)

posted 11-26-2018 06:55 PM               

On Nov. 26, 2018, MarCO-B, one of NASAs Mars Cube One (MarCO) CubeSats, took this image of Mars from about 4,700 miles (6,000 kilometers) away during its flyby of the Red Planet.

MarCO-B, one of the experimental Mars Cube One (MarCO) CubeSats, took this image of Mars from about 4,700 miles (6,000 kilometers) away during its flyby of the Red Planet on Nov. 26, 2018. MarCO-B was flying by Mars with its twin, MarCO-A, to attempt to serve as communications relays for NASA's InSight spacecraft as it landed on Mars. This image was taken at about 12:10 p.m. PST (3:10 p.m. EST) while MarCO-B was flying away from the planet after InSight landed.

posted 11-26-2018 06:58 PM               

quote:

---

Originally posted by denali414:
...will be ringing the Nasdaq stock exchange closing bell.

---

posted 11-26-2018 08:35 PM               

There’s a quiet beauty here. Looking forward to exploring my new home.

NASA's InSight Mars lander acquired this image using its robotic arm-mounted, Instrument Deployment Camera (IDC).

This image was acquired on November 26, 2018, Sol 0 where the local mean solar time for the image exposures was 14:04:35. Each IDC image has a field of view of 45 x 45 degrees.

posted 11-26-2018 09:06 PM            

quote:

---

Originally posted by Robert Pearlman:
There have now been eight successful landings:

---

posted 11-27-2018 01:24 AM               

Nobody knows exactly what was the reason till today - for more details please see Springer-Praxis "Russian Planetary Exploration" by Brian Harvey (p.144-146).

posted 11-27-2018 07:28 AM               

By verifying CubeSats are a viable technology for interplanetary missions, and feasible on a short development timeline, this technology demonstration could lead to many other applications to explore and study our solar system.

posted 11-27-2018 08:08 AM               

Our hope is that MarCO could help democratize deep space," said Jakob Van Zyl, director of the Solar System Exploration Directorate at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. "The technology is cheap enough that you could envision countries entering space that weren't players in the past. Even universities could do this.

A major draw of the CubeSat platform for science is its low cost, and JPL is working to adapt these new technologies to a variety of budgets. JPL’s deep space telemetry data and trajectory design technologies are scalable based on budget and scientific requirements, and new technology designs have a strong emphasis on cost-effectiveness.

posted 11-28-2018 03:00 PM               

MRO's attempt to image InSight on the parachute during its descent was unsuccessful.

The geometry was more challenging than the Phoenix and Curiosity images, and the uncertainty in timing and the limitations on MRO's ability to rapidly pan the camera across the scene motivated the HiRISE team to use a camera setting which unfortunately saturated the detector.

While disappointing, it is great to know that the parachute worked and the landing went as planned.

We want to thank all the folks who worked hard on this (special thanks to Maven) and we can't wait for some great science from InSight to start coming in!

posted 12-08-2018 11:17 PM               

Prior to launch, NASA provided a page with an explanation and shows a technician installing the second chip, giving a reference point to find on returned images from the surface.

The Insight Raw Images page has an image that shows the two chips on the lander's deck.

posted 12-12-2018 12:44 AM               

NASA's InSight Takes Its First Selfie

NASA's InSight lander isn't camera-shy. The spacecraft used a camera on its robotic arm to take its first selfie - a mosaic made up of 11 images. This is the same imaging process used by NASA's Curiosity rover mission, in which many overlapping pictures are taken and later stitched together. Visible in the selfie are the lander's solar panel and its entire deck, including its science instruments.

Above: This is NASA InSight's first selfie on Mars. It displays the lander's solar panels and deck. On top of the deck are its science instruments, weather sensor booms and UHF antenna. The selfie was taken on Dec. 6, 2018 (Sol 10). (NASA/JPL-Caltech)

Mission team members have also received their first complete look at InSight's "workspace" - the approximately 14-by-7-foot (4-by-2-meter) crescent of terrain directly in front of the spacecraft. This image is also a mosaic composed of 52 individual photos.

In the coming weeks, scientists and engineers will go through the painstaking process of deciding where in this workspace the spacecraft's instruments should be placed. They will then command InSight's robotic arm to carefully set the seismometer (called the Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure, or SEIS) and heat-flow probe (known as the Heat Flow and Physical Properties Package, or HP3) in the chosen locations. Both work best on level ground, and engineers want to avoid setting them on rocks larger than about a half-inch (1.3 cm).

Above: This mosaic, composed of 52 individual images from NASA's InSight lander, shows the workspace where the spacecraft will eventually set its science instruments. The lavender annotation shows where InSight's seismometer (called the Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure, or SEIS) and heat flow probe (called the Heat Flow and Physical Properties Package, or HP3) can be placed. (NASA/JPL-Caltech)

"The near-absence of rocks, hills and holes means it'll be extremely safe for our instruments," said InSight's Principal Investigator Bruce Banerdt of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. "This might seem like a pretty plain piece of ground if it weren't on Mars, but we're glad to see that."

InSight's landing team deliberately chose a landing region in Elysium Planitia that is relatively free of rocks. Even so, the landing spot turned out even better than they hoped. The spacecraft sits in what appears to be a nearly rock-free "hollow" - a depression created by a meteor impact that later filled with sand. That should make it easier for one of InSight's instruments, the heat-flow probe, to bore down to its goal of 16 feet (5 meters) below the surface.

posted 12-12-2018 09:18 AM               

quote:

---

Originally posted by Headshot:
Have engineers and scientists pinpointed exactly where InSight landed within the target ellipse?

---

Peek-a-boo, HiRISE sees you... later this week you all can do the comparison with this spectacular image.

posted 12-13-2018 12:58 PM               

Mars InSight Lander Seen in First Images from Space

On Nov. 26, NASA's InSight mission knew the spacecraft touched down within an 81-mile-long (130-kilometer-long) landing ellipse on Mars. Now, the team has pinpointed InSight's exact location using images from HiRISE, a powerful camera onboard another NASA spacecraft, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).

Above: NASA's InSight spacecraft, its heat shield and its parachute were imaged on Dec. 6 and 11 by the HiRISE camera onboard NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. (NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona)

The InSight lander, its heat shield and parachute were spotted by HiRISE (which stands for High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment) in one set of images last week on Dec. 6, and again on Tuesday, Dec. 11. The lander, heat shield and parachute are within 1,000 feet (several hundred meters) of one another on Elysium Planitia, the flat lava plain selected as InSight's landing location.

Above: An annotated image of the surface of Mars, taken by the HiRISE camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) on May 30, 2014. The annotations — added after InSight landed on Nov. 26, 2018 — display the locations of NASA's InSight lander, its heat shield and parachute. (NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona)

In images released today, the three new features on the Martian landscape appear teal. That's not their actual color: Light reflected off their surfaces causes the color to be saturated. The ground around the lander appears dark, having been blasted by its retrorockets during descent. Look carefully for a butterfly shape, and you can make out the lander's solar panels on either side.

This isn't the first time HiRISE has photographed a Mars lander. InSight is based largely on 2008's Phoenix spacecraft, which the camera aboard MRO captured on the surface of Mars as well as descending on its parachute. While the HiRISE team at the University of Arizona also tried to take an image of InSight during landing, MRO was at a much less opportune angle and wasn't able to take a good picture.

Above: The red dot marks the final landing location of NASA's InSight lander in this annotated image of the surface of Mars, taken by the THEMIS camera on NASA's 2001 Mars Odyssey orbiter in 2015. (NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona)

posted 02-19-2019 11:40 AM               

InSight Is the Newest Mars Weather Service

No matter how cold your winter has been, it's probably not as chilly as Mars. Check for yourself: Starting today, the public can get a daily weather report from NASA's InSight lander.

This public tool includes stats on temperature, wind and air pressure recorded by InSight. Sunday's weather was typical for the lander's location during late northern winter: a high of 2 degrees Fahrenheit (-17 degrees Celsius) and low of -138 degrees Fahrenheit (-95 degrees Celsius), with a top wind speed of 37.8 mph (16.9 m/s) in a southwest direction. The tool was developed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, with partners at Cornell University and Spain's Centro de Astrobiología. JPL leads the InSight mission.

Through a package of sensors called the Auxiliary Payload Subsystem (APSS), InSight will provide more around-the-clock weather information than any previous mission to the Martian surface. The lander records this data during each second of every sol (a Martian day) and sends it to Earth on a daily basis. The spacecraft is designed to continue that operation for at least the next two Earth years, allowing it to study seasonal changes as well.

The tool will be geeky fun for meteorologists while offering everyone who uses it a chance to be transported to another planet.

"It gives you the sense of visiting an alien place," said Don Banfield of Cornell University, in Ithaca, New York, who leads InSight's weather science. "Mars has familiar atmospheric phenomena that are still quite different than those on Earth."

Constantly collecting weather data allows scientists to detect sources of "noise" that could influence readings from the lander's seismometer and heat flow probe, its main instruments. Both are affected by Mars' extreme temperature swings. The seismometer, called the Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure (SEIS), is sensitive to air pressure changes and wind, which create movements that could mask actual marsquakes.

"APSS will help us filter out environmental noise in the seismic data and know when we're seeing a marsquake and when we aren't," Banfield said. "By operating continuously, we'll also see a more detailed view of the weather than most surface missions, which usually collect data only intermittently throughout a sol."

APSS includes an air pressure sensor inside the lander and two air temperature and wind sensors on the lander's deck. Under the edge of the deck is a magnetometer, provided by UCLA, which will measure changes in the local magnetic field that could also influence SEIS. It is the first magnetometer ever placed on the surface of another planet.

InSight will provide a unique data set that will complement the weather measurements of other active missions, including NASA's Curiosity rover and orbiters circling the planet. InSight's air temperature and wind sensors are actually refurbished spares originally built for Curiosity's Rover Environmental Monitoring Station (REMS). These two east- and west-facing booms sit on the lander's deck and are calledTemperature and Wind for InSight (TWINS), provided by Spain's Centro de Astrobiología.

TWINS will be used to tell the team when strong winds could interfere with small seismic signals. But it could also be used, along with InSight's cameras, to study how much dust and sand blow around. Scientists don't know how much wind it takes to lift dust in Mars' thin atmosphere, which affects dune formation and dust storms — including planet-encircling dust storms like the one that occurred last year, effectively ending the Opportunity rover's mission.

APSS will also help the mission team learn about dust devils that have left streaks on the planet's surface. Dust devils are essentially low-pressure whirlwinds, so InSight's air pressure sensor can detect when one is near. It's highly sensitive — 10 times more so than equipment on the Viking and Pathfinder landers — enabling the team to study dust devils from hundreds of feet (dozens of meters) away.

"Our data has already shown there are a lot of dust devils at our location," Banfield said. "Having such a sensitive pressure sensor lets us see more of them passing by."

posted 08-16-2019 12:53 PM               

I’ve pressed down next to the "mole" several times, and it's hard to make this unusual soil collapse into the pit. Soon, I'll be out of contact for a couple of weeks during solar conjunction, but my team on Earth will keep working it. Keep sending good vibes!

posted 09-20-2019 09:20 PM               

That's just one of the stunning preliminary findings from NASA's very first robotic geophysicist there, the InSight lander. Since touching down in November 2018, this spacecraft has been gathering intel to help scientists better understand our neighboring planet's innards and evolution, such as taking the temperature of its upper crust, recording the sounds of alien quakes, and measuring the strength and direction of the planet's magnetic field.

As revealed during a handful of presentations this week at a joint meeting of the European Planetary Science Congress and the American Astronomical Society, the early data suggest the magnetic machinations of Mars are marvelously mad.

posted 10-27-2019 03:41 PM               

Mars continues to surprise us. While digging this weekend the mole backed about halfway out of the ground. Preliminary assessment points to unexpected soil properties as the main reason. Team looking at next steps.

One possibility observed in testing on Earth is that soil could fall in front of the mole's tip as it rebounds, gradually filling the hole in front of it as the mole backs out. Team continues to look over the data and will have a plan in the next few days.