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.
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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.
Readers!
My annual February birthday fund-raising drive for Behind the Black is now over. Thank you to everyone who donated or subscribed. While not a record-setter, the donations were more than sufficient and slightly above average.
As I have said many times before, I can’t express what it means to me to get such support, especially as no one is required to pay anything to read my work. Thank you all again!
For those readers who like my work here at Behind the Black and haven't contributed so far, please consider donating or subscribing. My analysis of space, politics, and culture, taken from the perspective of an historian, is almost always on the money and ahead of the game. For example, in 2020 I correctly predicted that the COVID panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Every one of those 2020 conclusions has turned out right.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
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