{"id":18303,"date":"2018-10-22T22:31:51","date_gmt":"2018-10-22T14:31:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/pale-red-dot-nasas-marco-probe-snaps-first-picture-of-mars-taken-by-a-cubesat\/"},"modified":"2018-10-22T22:31:51","modified_gmt":"2018-10-22T14:31:51","slug":"pale-red-dot-nasas-marco-probe-snaps-first-picture-of-mars-taken-by-a-cubesat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/pale-red-dot-nasas-marco-probe-snaps-first-picture-of-mars-taken-by-a-cubesat\/","title":{"rendered":"Pale Red Dot: NASA\u2019s MarCO probe snaps first picture of Mars taken by a CubeSat"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_456788\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-456788\" style=\"width: 604px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-456788 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/181022-marco.jpg\" alt=\"MarCO view of Mars\" width=\"604\" height=\"586\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/181022-marco.jpg 604w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/181022-marco-300x291.jpg 300w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/181022-marco-200x194.jpg 200w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/181022-marco-103x100.jpg 103w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 604px) 100vw, 604px\"><figcaption data-nosnippet=\"\" id=\"caption-attachment-456788\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Mars shows up as a pale red dot on a picture taken by one of NASA\u2019s twin MarCO spacecraft on Oct. 2. Click on the image for a larger version. (NASA \/ JPL-Caltech Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Mars looks like nothing more than a reddish speck in a picture captured by one of NASA\u2019s twin MarCO spacecraft, but it\u2019s the start of something big for small satellites.<\/p>\n<p>NASA says the image, released today, is the first view of Mars recorded by a class of nanosatellites known as CubeSats.<\/p>\n<p>The briefcase-sized probes are part of a mission whose name is a contraction of \u201cMars Cube One,\u201d and were launched from California along with NASA\u2019s Mars InSight lander in May. They\u2019re officially known as MarCO-A and MarCO-B \u2014 but they\u2019ve been nicknamed WALL-E and EVE because they use propellant similar to the fire-extinguisher gas that the WALL-E robot used in the 2008 Pixar animated film.<\/p>\n<p>Just a few days after liftoff, WALL-E\u2019s wide-field color camera snapped a picture of Earth and the moon while checking on the deployment of its high-gain antenna. On Oct. 2, WALL-E did it again, this time looking 8 million miles ahead to Mars. The high-gain antenna can be seen to the right in the image, illuminated by sunlight.<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"Meet MarCO - Engineer Tests CubeSats for Better Communication at Mars\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/ZiSV8L2Oce4?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen=\"\" data-ratio=\"0.5625\" data-width=\"800\" data-height=\"450\" style=\"display: block; margin: 0px; width: 800px; height: 450px;\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>The MarCO mission team had to program WALL-E to rotate in space so that the spacecraft\u2019s deck was pointing toward Mars, and It took several test images to bring the Pale Red Dot into proper view.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019ve been waiting six months to get to Mars,\u201d Cody Colley, MarCO\u2019s mission manager at NASA\u2019s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said in a news release. \u201cThe cruise phase of the mission is always difficult, so you take all the small wins when they come. Finally seeing the planet is definitely a big win for the team.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>This is just the beginning of the mission\u2019s climactic phase: The MarCO probes should be sending back more detailed images in the run-up to the big Mars encounter on Nov. 26, the Monday after Thanksgiving. Mars InSight is due to land on the plains of the Red Planet\u2019s Elysium Planitia on that day while WALL-E and EVE sail past, making observations and sending data back to Earth.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s not yet clear what the MarCO probes will do after the flyby, but NASA is already making plans for more spacefaring CubeSats that\u2019ll&nbsp;head to Earth\u2019s moon, a mysterious icy moon of Jupiter called Europa and other far-out destinations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Mars shows up as a pale red dot on a picture taken by one of NASA\u2019s 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\u2019s twin MarCO spacecraft, but [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1608,927,367,20],"class_list":["post-18303","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-cubesats","tag-insight","tag-mars","tag-satellite"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18303"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18303"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18303\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18303"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18303"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18303"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}