Author Topic: InSight Mission Updates (Post Landing) (Read 166004 times)

Quote from: zubenelgenubi on 12/14/2018 02:08 pm
InSight landed inside a filled-in crater? Would that also be a ghost crater?
Crater?
The different color of terrain is due to landing retrorocket firing, it's not shadow.

Not the dark discoloration, but the lighter outline around the lander. The incomplete arc is best seen to the upper right of the lander, as the image is oriented. Similar complete or near-complete, circular outlines are scattered throughout the larger image field.

lamid · « **Reply #49 on:** 12/15/2018 05:40 am »

I used the coordinates posted by Emily Lakdawalla from Livio L. Tornabene in Google Earth and the distance is on image under.

I do not understand the difference in the distance between the image from HiRISE and Google Earth image.
InSight -Parachute : 368 or 566 m
InSight-Heat Shield: 496 or 757 m
Parachute-Heat Shield: 624 or 927 m

Has image from HiRISE wrong scale? cca 1.5 x?

lamid · « **Reply #50 on:** 12/15/2018 07:24 am »

I measured the distance in the image from:
https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/spaceimages/details.php?id=PIA22877
the scale here is fine

HiRISE 1.5x and 7° rotated, distances are incorrect

Locations of InSight, its Heat Shield and its Parachute, distances are correct

plutogno · « **Reply #51 on:** 12/15/2018 12:30 pm »

raw images for Sol 18 are up. they seem to indicate that seismometer deployment is imminent

mcgyver · « **Reply #52 on:** 12/15/2018 03:39 pm »

We are supposed to write in this UPDATE thread only to report news, not to discuss.

redliox · « **Reply #53 on:** 12/17/2018 07:58 pm »

I mentioned it excitedly in the master thread but I'm mentioning it here since this looks like a worthy update.

INSIGHT'S GRABBING SEIS!

redliox · « **Reply #54 on:** 12/18/2018 10:14 pm »

An article at the InSight webpage from NASA verifies the team's preparing for SEIS instrument deployment imminently:
https://mars.nasa.gov/news/8401/insight-engineers-have-made-a-martian-rock-garden/

Quote

Every bit of additional realism in the lab creates a more reliable test. The team spent this past weekend commanding each movement of ForeSight's robotic arm, ensuring that the instrument tethers stayed clear of rocks. By Monday morning, they had confirmed the science team's preferred placements: about 5.4 feet (1.6 meters) directly in front of the lander for the seismometer. The heat flow probe will be placed roughly the same distance from the lander, but about 4 feet (1.2 meters) to the left of the seismometer.

The commands to set down InSight's seismometer are being sent to Mars today. In a few days, Sundgaard and her team will be waiting to see the first pictures of their work recreated robotically on the Red Planet.

Blackstar · « **Reply #55 on:** 12/18/2018 10:54 pm »

So we don't need to keep scrolling back to find it, here is the link to the raw images:

https://mars.nasa.gov/insight/multimedia/raw-images/?order=sol+desc%2Cdate_taken+desc&per_page=50&page=0&mission=insight

I expect that they will take a whole series as they're doing the lift and placement and then string them together so we get a bit of a movie out of it.

jacqmans · « **Reply #56 on:** 12/20/2018 06:01 am »

NASA's InSight Places First Instrument on Mars

NASA's InSight lander has deployed its first instrument onto the surface of Mars, completing a major mission milestone. New images from the lander show the seismometer on the ground, its copper-colored covering faintly illuminated in the Martian dusk. It looks as if all is calm and all is bright for InSight, heading into the end of the year.

"InSight's timetable of activities on Mars has gone better than we hoped," said InSight Project Manager Tom Hoffman, who is based at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. "Getting the seismometer safely on the ground is an awesome Christmas present."

The InSight team has been working carefully toward deploying its two dedicated science instruments onto Martian soil since landing on Mars on Nov. 26. Meanwhile, the Rotation and Interior Structure Experiment (RISE), which does not have its own separate instrument, has already begun using InSight's radio connection with Earth to collect preliminary data on the planet's core. Not enough time has elapsed for scientists to deduce what they want to know - scientists estimate they might have some results starting in about a year.

To deploy the seismometer (also known as the Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure, or SEIS) and the heat probe (also known as the Heat Flow and Physical Properties Probe, or HP3), engineers first had to verify the robotic arm that picks up and places InSight's instruments onto the Martian surface was working properly. Engineers tested the commands for the lander, making sure a model in the test bed at JPL deployed the instruments exactly as intended. Scientists also had to analyze images of the Martian terrain around the lander to figure out the best places to deploy the instruments.

On Tuesday, Dec. 18, InSight engineers sent up the commands to the spacecraft. On Wednesday, Dec. 19, the seismometer was gently placed onto the ground directly in front of the lander, about as far away as the arm can reach - 5.367 feet, or 1.636 meters, away).

"Seismometer deployment is as important as landing InSight on Mars," said InSight Principal Investigator Bruce Banerdt, also based at JPL. "The seismometer is the highest-priority instrument on InSight: We need it in order to complete about three-quarters of our science objectives."

The seismometer allows scientists to peer into the Martian interior by studying ground motion - also known as marsquakes. Each marsquake acts as a kind of flashbulb that illuminates the structure of the planet's interior. By analyzing how seismic waves pass through the layers of the planet, scientists can deduce the depth and composition of these layers.

"Having the seismometer on the ground is like holding a phone up to your ear," said Philippe Lognonné, principal investigator of SEIS from Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris (IPGP) and Paris Diderot University. "We're thrilled that we're now in the best position to listen to all the seismic waves from below Mars' surface and from its deep interior."

In the coming days, the InSight team will work on leveling the seismometer, which is sitting on ground that is tilted 2 to 3 degrees. The first seismometer science data should begin to flow back to Earth after the seismometer is in the right position.

But engineers and scientists at JPL, the French national space agency Centre National d'Études Spatiales (CNES) and other institutions affiliated with the SEIS team will need several additional weeks to make sure the returned data are as clear as possible. For one thing, they will check and possibly adjust the seismometer's long, wire-lined tether to minimize noise that could travel along it to the seismometer. Then, in early January, engineers expect to command the robotic arm to place the Wind and Thermal Shield over the seismometer to stabilize the environment around the sensors.

Assuming that there are no unexpected issues, the InSight team plans to deploy the heat probe onto the Martian surface by late January. HP3 will be on the east side of the lander's work space, roughly the same distance away from the lander as the seismometer.

For now, though, the team is focusing on getting those first bits of seismic data (however noisy) back from the Martian surface.

"We look forward to popping some Champagne when we start to get data from InSight's seismometer on the ground," Banerdt added. "I have a bottle ready for the occasion."

JPL manages InSight for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. InSight is part of NASA's Discovery Program, which is managed by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. Lockheed Martin Space in Denver built the InSight spacecraft, including its cruise stage and lander, and supports spacecraft operations for the mission.

A number of European partners, including CNES and the German Aerospace Center (DLR), support the InSight mission. CNES provided SEIS to NASA, with the principal investigator at IPGP. Significant contributions for SEIS came from IPGP, the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Germany, the Swiss Institute of Technology in Switzerland, Imperial College and Oxford University in the United Kingdom, and JPL. DLR provided the Heat Flow and Physical Properties Package (HP3) instrument, with significant contributions from the Space Research Center of the Polish Academy of Sciences and Astronika in Poland. Spain's Centro de Astrobiología supplied the wind sensors.

For more information about InSight, visit:

https://mars.nasa.gov/insight

ejb749 · « **Reply #57 on:** 12/20/2018 08:29 pm »

Here's an animation I made of the deployment, with a slight level shift for brightness.

eeergo · « **Reply #58 on:** 12/22/2018 07:48 pm »

SEIS has been released by the grapple:

https://twitter.com/CNES/status/1076547445474115584

Blackstar · « **Reply #59 on:** 12/22/2018 09:33 pm »

Here are the images off the image site: