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NASA’s InSight Lander Successful Landed On Mars, And There Are Some Incredible Photos Already!

byJinal Bhatt
27th November 2018
2 minute read

Want to hear about something that’ll totally blow your mind out of the world? Well, NASA had sent another lander on a mission to Mars a few months back, and the little fella has landed safe and sound on Mangal to do some Dangal!

Okay kids, say howdy to NASA’s Mars lander InSIGHT which has made a safe landing on the red planet this morning after six months of cruising through space!

Now what’s so exciting about this lander? Well, it’s mission is to give Mars its first thorough exploration since its formation some 4.5 billion years ago!

InSIGHT stands for Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport. According to NASA’s website,

“InSIGHT is the first outer space robotic explorer to study in-depth the “inner space” of Mars: its crust, mantle, and core.”

InSIGHT has two-fold scientific goals that it strives to achieve in the duration of its mission, which will span a little more than 1 Mars year. This is equivalent to 2 Earth years or 709 Sols (Mars days), or 728 Earth days.

“To Study Mars’ interior structure And answer key questions about the early formation of rocky planets in our inner solar system – Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars – more than 4 billion years ago, as well as rocky exoplanets. InSight will also measure tectonic activity and meteorite impacts on Mars today.”

Now tell me, ain’t that cool?

InSight was launched off from the Vandenberg Air Force Base in California on an Atlas V-401 on May 5, 2018. The mission cost was a cool $1 billion and countless people working towards making it happen.

The mission is divided into six phases: Pre-launch, Launch, Cruise, Approach, Landing and Surface Ops. While the cruise phase, which is the lander shuttling through space to reach Mars, took six months, the Approach phase was initiated some 60 days before landing.

Here’s the nailbiting moments counting down to InSight’s successful landing on Mars surface!

Did you see that insane handshake routine that the two NASA employees had come prepared with for this very moment? It’s actually going viral now!

Now that the little fella has landed on Mars, the final phase of the mission, i.e. the Surface Ops, will kickstart within 30 days. But for now, InSight just couldn’t help but send us a little sneak peek of its new home!

Here’s to InSight getting us some more insight into the Red Planet!

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