Nasa’s latest Mars craft nears landing for unprecedented seismic mission
Nasa’s first spacecraft built to explore the deep interior of another world streaked toward a landing scheduled for Monday on a vast, barren plain on Mars, carrying instruments to detect planetary heat and seismic rumblings never measured anywhere but Earth.
After sailing 301 million miles (548 million km) on a six-month voyage through deep space, the robotic lander InSight was due to touch down on the dusty, rock-strewn surface of the Red Planet at about 8 pm GMT.
If all goes according to plan, InSight will hurtle through the top of the thin Martian atmosphere at 12,000 miles per hour (19,310 kilometers per hour). Slowed by friction, deployment of a giant parachute and retro rockets, InSight will descend 77 miles through pink Martian skies to the surface in 6 1/2 minutes, traveling a mere 5 mph (8 kph) by the time it lands.
Nasa’s latest Mars craft nears landing for unprecedented seismic mission
Nasa’s latest Mars craft nears landing for unprecedented seismic mission
After sailing 548 million km on a six-month voyage through deep space, the robotic lander InSight was due to touch down on Mars .
Nasa’s latest Mars craft nears landing for unprecedented seismic mission
A full-scale replica of Nasa’s Mars InSight, a robotic stationary lander that marks the first spacecraft designed to study the deep interior of the Red Planet.
InSight will hurtle through the top of the thin Martian atmosphere at 19,310 km per hour
InSight will spend 24 months – about one Martian year
It will study how Mars was formed, origins of the Earth and other rocky planets
Nasa’s first spacecraft built to explore the deep interior of another world streaked toward a landing scheduled for Monday on a vast, barren plain on Mars, carrying instruments to detect planetary heat and seismic rumblings never measured anywhere but Earth.
After sailing 301 million miles (548 million km) on a six-month voyage through deep space, the robotic lander InSight was due to touch down on the dusty, rock-strewn surface of the Red Planet at about 8 pm GMT.
If all goes according to plan, InSight will hurtle through the top of the thin Martian atmosphere at 12,000 miles per hour (19,310 kilometers per hour). Slowed by friction, deployment of a giant parachute and retro rockets, InSight will descend 77 miles through pink Martian skies to the surface in 6 1/2 minutes, traveling a mere 5 mph (8 kph) by the time it lands.
