Starting its launch from California on 5th May 2018 covering a distance of 301 million miles with over six months period of journey in deep outer space, NASA’s Mars Insight lands successfully on the Red Planet to begin its two-year mission as the first spacecraft to examine and study the deep interior of another planet.
For the eight-time ever, mankind succeeded in one of its hardest jobs in the field of the solar system by successfully landing a satellite on Mars.
The InSight lander (The Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport), is built by scientists in the United States, France and Germany and operated by NASA, a mission which took nearly ten years and close to $1 billion in the making touched down safely the surface of Mars Elysium Planitia on Monday just before 3 p.m.
Seconds before the final landing the entire control room was silent with everyone listening to the final countdown. According to reports, the entrance, falling, and landing of InSight’s was the riskiest series in its whole mission. As NASA termed it, the InSight survived “seven minutes of terror” before it landed safely on the Red Planet marking its day.
The shuttle sent its first images of Mars surroundings that were shared reflected a dusty surface.
Soon after landing when the dust settled down, InSight was able to send back the clear image from Mars to Earth.
People celebrated the Insight’s landing with cheers and applause all over the world, While in the control room it was a traditional handshake, But there were these two who gave a special touch down to the celebration about which the world can’t stop talking about.
See it yourself and you’ll be amazed too.
What was your reaction to today’s #MarsLanding? 🚀
STEP 1: Reply with a GIF or photo of your reaction
STEP 2: See how others reacted by taking a look at this @Twitter moment: https://t.co/39T6BFwgNj pic.twitter.com/6YULrFsiEs— NASA (@NASA) November 27, 2018
Before people could reach on Mars, names of over 2.43 million individuals have already reached inscribed on a silicon chip.
According to NASA, 2,429,807 individuals from throughout the world enrolled their names to be sent to Mars through the InSight Lander in which an aggregate of 1,38,899 Indians have already sent their names to Mars.
NASA started a program in 2015 asking people to register their names on NASA’s website. Even during the last year, NASA tweeted asking people to print their “Mars Boarding Pass”.
Isn’t it so cool some people already reached to Mars without even travelling, how ironical?
FACTS About the InSight Mission:
– Only about 40% of all missions to Mars are successful and the only country whose spacecraft have survived a landing on the planet is the US.
– InSight will be the first mission to study deep into Mars’ interior to give complete geophysical research to study its formation, evolution, and composition and other rocky bodies in our solar system.
– According to NASA, the mission will have two solar panels that unfold like paper fans while the lander crosses about 6 meters.
– The InSight Lander is 5 ft 1 inch wide and 19 feet 8 inches long and weighs 360 kg which is approximately the weight of about 5 people.
– The basic design of InSight is inspired by the Phoenix spacecraft, which was sent to Mars on May 25, 2008.
– Covering the of 301,223,981 miles voyage Insight travelled at the speed of 6,200 mph along with two cube satellites.
– After landing within few weeks InSight will use a robotic arm to place its two main devices seismometer and heat probe respectively to directly and permanently onto the Martian ground.
– The seismometer will record seismic waves from ‘marsquakes’ or meteor impacts that reveal information about the planet’s interior layers.
– The heat probe is designed to hammer itself to a depth of 3 meters or more and measure the amount of energy coming from the planet’s deep interior.
– InSight is being followed to Mars by two mini-spacecraft comprising NASA’s Mars Cube One (MarCO). MarCOs are the first CubeSats that are sent into deep space.
