InSight has successfully landed
NASA engineers have received confirmation that InSight has successfully touched down on the Martian surface.
Don’t count your chickens yet. They need to wait about five hours for the dust, kicked up by landing, to settle before they try opening the solar panels. That must succeed, or the mission will fail, having no source of power.
The landing information was relayed through the two MARCO cubesats flying past Mars, a landmark engineering achievement that in a sense is more significant than the landing itself. These cubesats have demonstrated that smallsats can do complex interplanetary tasks. Expect a revolution in the planetary space exploration world.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
NASA engineers have received confirmation that InSight has successfully touched down on the Martian surface.
Don’t count your chickens yet. They need to wait about five hours for the dust, kicked up by landing, to settle before they try opening the solar panels. That must succeed, or the mission will fail, having no source of power.
The landing information was relayed through the two MARCO cubesats flying past Mars, a landmark engineering achievement that in a sense is more significant than the landing itself. These cubesats have demonstrated that smallsats can do complex interplanetary tasks. Expect a revolution in the planetary space exploration world.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Whew!
Congratulations NASA!!! Job well done!
However I am going to express my feelings again regarding a probe which will “bore” 16 feet into the volcanic Martin surface…. Yet we have a drill on the curiosity rover that can’t drill half an inch into hard sandstone due to technical problems….
I feel there is lack of cross pollination here, anything that can drill itself 16 feet into sandstone could surely do the same on an Europa/ Enceladus/ Titan mission, and could perhaps use the same tech to examine something more exciting than temperature varients
Lee- from my understanding it isnt a drill so to speak, but a coiling spring loaded hammering mechanism that will bore fractions of a millimeter at a time. Over the course of tens of thousands of “hammers” it should reach a depth of about 16 feet. Ill bet it could go even deeper but is restricted by the length of the cable it is attatched to.
Think of the planetary missions NASA could do using a fraction of the SLS boondoggle billions
GREAT FOR THE SCIENTIST WHO DESIGNED AND WORKED ON THIS SPACECRAFT.
Lee–
Ditto with what Mike Borden relates– it’s not so much a drill as it is a miniature battering-ram device.
(I believe it’s a temperature probe, cuz’ they want the temperature gradient data below the surface.)
Who can tell me how far into the Moon the astronaut’s managed to pound a temperature probe? (I’ve variously heard 3-13 feet.)
Lee–
this is informative
What will InSight do on Mars?
https://youtu.be/csV0BCWZ0oA
8:35