Tag: InSight
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Mars lander on course for Monday touchdown
STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS & USED WITH PERMISSION The InSight spacecraft approaches Mars in this artist’s concept. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech After a six-month voyage from Earth, NASA’s InSight Mars lander, streaking through space at at some 12,300 mph, will slam into the thin martian atmosphere Monday afternoon to begin a nail-biting six-and-a-half-minute descent to the surface, kicking…
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Elon Musk says there’s a 70 percent chance he’ll move to Mars (and possibly die there)
Axios’ Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen interview SpaceX CEO Elon Musk. (Axios / HBO via YouTube) As NASA prepares for its next Mars landing on Monday, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk is giving himself a 70 percent chance of moving to Mars. But in an Axios interview airing tonight on HBO, he emphasizes that it won’t…
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All systems go for Mars InSight landing: Here’s how to watch online and in person
An artist’s conception shows the Mars Insight lander on the Red Planet’s surface, with its seismometer deployed at left and its heat-measuring “mole” deployed at right. (NASA / JPL-Caltech Illustration) After a 300 million-mile, six-month interplanetary cruise, NASA’s Mars InSight robotic lander is heading for a plain-vanilla arrival at the Red Planet on Monday —…
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Pale Red Dot: NASA’s MarCO probe snaps first picture of Mars taken by a CubeSat
Mars shows up as a pale red dot on a picture taken by one of NASA’s twin MarCO spacecraft on Oct. 2. Click on the image for a larger version. (NASA / JPL-Caltech Photo) Mars looks like nothing more than a reddish speck in a picture captured by one of NASA’s twin MarCO spacecraft, but…
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First interplanetary CubeSats already setting records in deep space
Artist’s concept of the MarCO CubeSats. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech Two CubeSats developed at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory launched May 5 with the InSight mission to Mars have deployed their miniaturized antennas and captured a distant family portrait of the Earth and the moon. The twin spacecraft have already set a distance record for CubeSats, and they…
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Smallest interplanetary probe snaps a picture of our Pale Blue Dot (and the moon)
The nanosatellite known as MarCO-B or WALL-E took this picture of Earth and the moon from a distance of more than 620,000 miles. (NASA / JPL-Caltech Photo) You don’t have to fly beyond the orbit of Neptune to see our home planet as a Pale Blue Dot. One of the first nanosatellites to travel beyond…
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Rocketcam replay of InSight’s launch to Mars
Video credit: United Launch Alliance United Launch Alliance has released a replay of the May 5 liftoff of NASA’s InSight mission to Mars aboard an Atlas 5 rocket, as viewed by aft- and forward-facing cameras on the two-stage launch vehicle. The 188-foot-tall (57-meter) Atlas 5 rocket lifted off at 4:05 a.m. PDT (7:05 a.m. EDT;…
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Photos: Shrouded in fog, Atlas 5 takes flight from Vandenberg
A layer of fog intruding on Vandenberg Air Force Base in California kept nearby observers from seeing any sign of Saturday’s predawn launch of an Atlas 5 rocket carrying a robotic NASA probe to Mars. The only images of the Atlas 5’s fiery takeoff came from remote cameras placed at the launch pad, or from…
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InSight lander lifts off from California, kicking off quest to get Mars’ inside story
An Atlas 5 rocket rises from its fog-shrouded launch pad at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, sending NASA’s Mars InSight lander toward the Red Planet. (GeekWire Photo/Kevin Lisota) NASA’s Mars InSight lander and two piggyback probes were lofted through California’s coastal fog into space before dawn today, beginning a six-month, 300 million-mile journey to…
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After foggy departure, it’s clear sailing to Mars for InSight lander
A fog layer at Vandenberg Air Force Base prevented nearby observers from viewing the launch of NASA’s InSight mission to Mars, but viewing points farther away from the launch site had clear skies. This long exposure photo was captured at Ventura, California. Credit: William G. Hartenstein Making a fiery climb into a foggy sky Saturday…