Video Caption: When
NASA’s InSight descends to the Red Planet on Nov. 26, 2018, it's guaranteed to
be a white-knuckle event. Rob Manning, chief engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion
Laboratory, explains the critical steps that must happen in perfect sequence to
get NASA’s InSight robotic lander safely to the surface on Nov. 26, 2018.
Credit: NASA JPL
Ken
Kremer --SpaceUpClose.com & RocketSTEM --24
November 2018
CAPE CANAVERAL, FL – The excitement is building as its now just over 1 day until NASA’s next Mars mission, the InSight lander, is scheduled to arrive after a 7 month interplanetary journey and hit the planet’s thin atmosphere on Monday afternoon, Nov. 26, for a bail-biting descent landing on the Red Planet’s surface.
Thus starts the harrowing process known as EDL or Entry, Descent and Landing or more popularly as the ‘7 minutes of Terror’ ultimately leading to a hoped for soft touchdown at Elysium Planitia – a sandy, flat plain on the Red Planet around 2:54 p.m. EDT, 11:54 a.m. PST. See graphics below.
The $830 Million spacecraft is on course to study Mars deep interior and Marsquakes for the first time in human history to elucidate how it evolved over 4.5 Billions years. That history has been erased by natural progression and evolution on and inside Earth including plate tectonics and erosion of our planet's crust.
"On Monday, the United States will land on Mars for the eighth time in human history,” tweeted NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine.
To explain those thousands of critical ‘do or die’ EDL actions in detail, NASA released an exciting and fact filled new video – see above - featuring well known Mars Engineer Rob Manning of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA. JPL manages the InSight mission for NASA.
Watch the video:
https://youtu.be/kyD0q57zw40
“When NASA’s InSight descends to the Red Planet on Nov. 26, 2018, it's guaranteed to be a white-knuckle event. Rob Manning, chief engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, explains the critical steps that must happen in perfect sequence to get the robotic lander safely to the surface.” – NASA JPL
Manning has worked on all of NASA’s Mars landers and rovers for more than 20 years going back to Mars Pathfinder.
InSight is NASA’s first mission to Mars surface in 6 years since the Curiosity rover safely touched down by the skycrane maneuver in 2012 - to begin a minimum 2 year long mission to study the heart of Mars and elucidate the deep interior of the Red Planet like never before.
“Going to space always
carries risk. Its never easy, "said Dr. Thomas Zurbuchen, Associate Administrator
of NASA Science Mission Directorate, at NASA HQ Washington, D.C.
CAPE CANAVERAL, FL – The excitement is building as its now just over 1 day until NASA’s next Mars mission, the InSight lander, is scheduled to arrive after a 7 month interplanetary journey and hit the planet’s thin atmosphere on Monday afternoon, Nov. 26, for a bail-biting descent landing on the Red Planet’s surface.
Thus starts the harrowing process known as EDL or Entry, Descent and Landing or more popularly as the ‘7 minutes of Terror’ ultimately leading to a hoped for soft touchdown at Elysium Planitia – a sandy, flat plain on the Red Planet around 2:54 p.m. EDT, 11:54 a.m. PST. See graphics below.
The $830 Million spacecraft is on course to study Mars deep interior and Marsquakes for the first time in human history to elucidate how it evolved over 4.5 Billions years. That history has been erased by natural progression and evolution on and inside Earth including plate tectonics and erosion of our planet's crust.
"On Monday, the United States will land on Mars for the eighth time in human history,” tweeted NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine.
To explain those thousands of critical ‘do or die’ EDL actions in detail, NASA released an exciting and fact filled new video – see above - featuring well known Mars Engineer Rob Manning of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA. JPL manages the InSight mission for NASA.
Watch the video:
https://youtu.be/kyD0q57zw40
“When NASA’s InSight descends to the Red Planet on Nov. 26, 2018, it's guaranteed to be a white-knuckle event. Rob Manning, chief engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, explains the critical steps that must happen in perfect sequence to get the robotic lander safely to the surface.” – NASA JPL
Manning has worked on all of NASA’s Mars landers and rovers for more than 20 years going back to Mars Pathfinder.
InSight is NASA’s first mission to Mars surface in 6 years since the Curiosity rover safely touched down by the skycrane maneuver in 2012 - to begin a minimum 2 year long mission to study the heart of Mars and elucidate the deep interior of the Red Planet like never before.
 |
NASA Insight plunges through the thin atmosphere of the Red
Planet during harrowing Entry, Descent and Landing on Nov. 26, 2018. Credit:
NASA JPL.
|
“The amazing InSight vehicle is ready to land and change our perception of Mars.”
Only 40 percent of Earth's mission to Mars have succeeded.
“The goal of InSight is nothing less than to
better understand the birth of the Earth, the birth of the planet we live on,
and we’re going to do that by going to Mars,” said InSight Principal
Investigator Bruce Banerdt, of NASA’s
Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
“The landing kicks off a two-year mission for
our @NASAInSight spacecraft to study Mars' deep interior,” the NASA InSight
team tweeted.
NASA’s Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport (InSight) Mars mission launched on a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket in the dead of night at 7:05 a.m. EDT (4:05 am PDT) May 5, 2018 from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California.
Nearly 7 months after liftoff the landing is scheduled for Nov. 26, 2018 at Elysium Planitia at around 3 p.m. EST (noon PST). The location is about 375 miles away from Gale Crater - where NASA's Curiosity rover landed in 2012.
 |
The InSight spacecraft approaches Mars in this
artist's concept. Landing set for Nov. 26, 2018. Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and
Heat Transport, or InSight, is a Mars lander that probes the planet's deep
interior to shed light on the evolution of Mars and the rocky planets of the
solar system. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltecch
|
“Although we’ve done
it before, landing on Mars is hard. And this mission is no different,” Manning
explains.
“The process to get from the top of the atmosphere to the surface we call Entry, Descent and Landing or EDL.”
“It takes thousands of steps to go from the top of the atmosphere to the surface. And each one of them has to work perfectly to be a successful mission.”
“For 7 months, InSight has made the interplanetary trek journeying to Mars while attached to the cruise stage which provides power, propulsion, guidance and navigation and communication.
But the job of the cruise stage is nearly done.
The next step just 7 minutes before we arrive at the top of the Martian atmosphere is to separate the cruise stage.”
Watch the video for Manning’s detailed explanation of the process and pitfalls of EDL.
At the moment she arrives, NASA's InSight
spacecraft will have cruised 301,223,981 miles (484,773,006 km) at a top speed
of 6,200 mph (10,000 kph) during the seven-month journey to Mars.
By the time she reaches the top of the Martian atmosphere at approximately 80
miles (about 128 kilometers) altitude, In Sight will be traveling at a velocity of 12,300
miles per hour (5.5 kilometers per second).
To accomplish a precision parachute and rocket assisted soft touchdown all the EDL events much work to successfully slow the spacecraft from 12,300 MPH to just 5 MPH at the end of the ‘7 Minutes of Terror.”
She will deploy a supersonic parachute and fire 12 descent engines.
During the atmospheric plunge InSight will experience radically high temperatures reaching up to 2700 degrees F (1500 C) – enough to melt iron - and is protected from melting and destruction by the heat shield.
The spacecraft is based on the design of NASA’s successful Mars lander which touched down safely back in 2008 which arrives at a slightly faster velocity of 12,500 miles per hour (5.6 kilometers per second).
Insight is also slightly heavier weighing about 1,340 pounds (608 kilograms) vs. 1,263 pounds (573 kilograms).
InSight also will be landing at a slightly higher elevation of “about 4,900 feet (1.5 kilometers) higher than Phoenix did, so it has less atmosphere to use for deceleration.”
So the InSight team
has been busy for 7 years to get the spacecraft ready for Monday’s landing on
Nov. 26.
InSight in an international science mission. Loaded aboard are the two primary science instruments provided by European partners: The SEIS seismometer and HP3 heat flow measuring instrument.
The SEIS seismometer instrument to detect marsquakes was provided by the Centre National d'Études Spatiales (CNES) - the French national space agency equivalent to NASA. The other instrument measuring heat flow from the Martian interior is provided by the German Aerospace Center (DLR) and is named Heat Flow and Physical Properties Package (HP3).
The HP3 hammering mole will pound about 5 meters (16 feet) deep into Mars pulling the science heat flow cable tether along to make heat flow and temperature measurements. It will pause multiple times along the way down to make detailed measurements at different depths of heat flow from the planets core.
After landing it will take about 2 to 3 months to lift the two science instruments off the robots deck and deploy them onto Mars surface using the robotic arm.
InSight is also equipped with two cameras.
There is also a weather station aboard to continuously measure local temperatures, wind speeds and direction and pressures every day 24/7 for the first time on Mars.
Also aboard are 2 cubesats named MarCO A and B (nicknamed WALL-E and Eva) which are the first ever interplanetary cubesats launching beyond Earth orbit and towards the Red Planet. They are technology demonstration experiments.
The two briefcase sized spacecraft fly separately and have survived the entire trip and hopefully will relay EDL data from InSight as it plummets down to the Red Planet.
They have taken a few images to be detailed in another story.
You can watch everything live on landing day on NASA TV starting at 2 p.m. EDT, 11 a.m. PST.
“The process to get from the top of the atmosphere to the surface we call Entry, Descent and Landing or EDL.”
“It takes thousands of steps to go from the top of the atmosphere to the surface. And each one of them has to work perfectly to be a successful mission.”
“For 7 months, InSight has made the interplanetary trek journeying to Mars while attached to the cruise stage which provides power, propulsion, guidance and navigation and communication.
But the job of the cruise stage is nearly done.
The next step just 7 minutes before we arrive at the top of the Martian atmosphere is to separate the cruise stage.”
Watch the video for Manning’s detailed explanation of the process and pitfalls of EDL.
 |
Deployment of supersonic parachute on NASA Insight during plunge
through the thin atmosphere of the Red Planet during harrowing Entry, Descent
and Landing on Nov. 26, 2018. Credit: NASA JPL
|
 |
| Descent rockets fire to slow NASA Insight to soft touchdown on the Red Planet during harrowing Entry, Descent and Landing sequence on Nov. 26, 2018. Credit: NASA JPL |
To accomplish a precision parachute and rocket assisted soft touchdown all the EDL events much work to successfully slow the spacecraft from 12,300 MPH to just 5 MPH at the end of the ‘7 Minutes of Terror.”
She will deploy a supersonic parachute and fire 12 descent engines.
During the atmospheric plunge InSight will experience radically high temperatures reaching up to 2700 degrees F (1500 C) – enough to melt iron - and is protected from melting and destruction by the heat shield.
The spacecraft is based on the design of NASA’s successful Mars lander which touched down safely back in 2008 which arrives at a slightly faster velocity of 12,500 miles per hour (5.6 kilometers per second).
Insight is also slightly heavier weighing about 1,340 pounds (608 kilograms) vs. 1,263 pounds (573 kilograms).
InSight also will be landing at a slightly higher elevation of “about 4,900 feet (1.5 kilometers) higher than Phoenix did, so it has less atmosphere to use for deceleration.”
 |
| Descent rockets fire to slow NASA Insight to soft touchdown on the Red Planet during harrowing Entry, Descent and Landing sequence on Nov. 26, 2018. Credit: NASA JPL |
InSight in an international science mission. Loaded aboard are the two primary science instruments provided by European partners: The SEIS seismometer and HP3 heat flow measuring instrument.
The SEIS seismometer instrument to detect marsquakes was provided by the Centre National d'Études Spatiales (CNES) - the French national space agency equivalent to NASA. The other instrument measuring heat flow from the Martian interior is provided by the German Aerospace Center (DLR) and is named Heat Flow and Physical Properties Package (HP3).
The HP3 hammering mole will pound about 5 meters (16 feet) deep into Mars pulling the science heat flow cable tether along to make heat flow and temperature measurements. It will pause multiple times along the way down to make detailed measurements at different depths of heat flow from the planets core.
After landing it will take about 2 to 3 months to lift the two science instruments off the robots deck and deploy them onto Mars surface using the robotic arm.
 |
Artist's rendering of
the NASA's Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat
Transport (InSight) lander on Mars launched on May 5, 2018 from Vandenberg Air
Force Base, Calif and landing on Nov. 26, 2018 at Elysium
Planitia. Credits: NASA
|
There is also a weather station aboard to continuously measure local temperatures, wind speeds and direction and pressures every day 24/7 for the first time on Mars.
Also aboard are 2 cubesats named MarCO A and B (nicknamed WALL-E and Eva) which are the first ever interplanetary cubesats launching beyond Earth orbit and towards the Red Planet. They are technology demonstration experiments.
The two briefcase sized spacecraft fly separately and have survived the entire trip and hopefully will relay EDL data from InSight as it plummets down to the Red Planet.
They have taken a few images to be detailed in another story.
You can watch everything live on landing day on NASA TV starting at 2 p.m. EDT, 11 a.m. PST.
The landing coverage
will also be stream live on: YouTube.com/NASAJPL/live and Ustream.tv/NASAJPL
InSight
is funded by NASA’s Discovery Program of low cost, focused science missions
along with the science instrument funding contributions from France and
Germany.
Watch for Ken’s continuing onsite coverage of NASA, SpaceX, ULA, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and more space and mission reports direct from the Kennedy Space Center, Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida and Wallops Flight Facility, Virginia.
Stay tuned here for Ken's continuing Earth and Planetary science and human spaceflight news: www.kenkremer.com –www.spaceupclose.com – twitter @ken_kremer – email: ken at kenkremer.com
 |
Watch for Ken’s continuing onsite coverage of NASA, SpaceX, ULA, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and more space and mission reports direct from the Kennedy Space Center, Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida and Wallops Flight Facility, Virginia.
Stay tuned here for Ken's continuing Earth and Planetary science and human spaceflight news: www.kenkremer.com –www.spaceupclose.com – twitter @ken_kremer – email: ken at kenkremer.com
Dr. Kremer is a research scientist, journalist and photographer based in the KSC area………….
Ken’s photos are for sale and he is available for lectures and outreach events
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