[Unfortunately I can no more work on it till 2018-11-25 10:00 GMT, maybe you've best luck?
[/quote]
Thank you so much for sharing. I'm afraid I won't be able to work on them until mid week...
Cheers

Fernando

Here's a useful timeline of EDL and post-landing events. If all goes well we may see a surface image as early as 1204 PDT (2004 GMT); however, this may not happen until the following day.

I don't know what the landing site local time will be.

They made a mistake, seem fixed now (at least the wrong day above)


It seems Horizons has flight data to entry interface, and from then on static, on the ground coordinates for 4 days. I.e. no EDL data in Horizons, which I dont think they ever had anyway. I suspect, however, they may have pasted the static data a tad too early over the flight data.

At :39:59 distance is about 20km greater than for nominal EI (125km above equator radius Mars, or 3522 from center), so that data infers EI at 19:40:16. I'll check back in 24 hours, will update my stuff then. The good thing is, Mars will be there, regardless :-)

https://mars.nasa.gov/insight/multimedia/raw-images/

This is where we will get to see the images as they come in.

Phil

Is the last TCM going to be used ?

The press kit says "mid afternoon on a winter day" (see page 13)
Fernando

Bit late, but press briefing live now. Appears that there will be a TCM-6 later today.

EDIT: Great brief. Lots of detail on MARCO and the seismometer thus far. The replay will be worth watching. Also just spotted Emily in the front row, and she's asking the first question!

EDIT2: TCM-6 will be "a few cm/sec" delta V, will offset current target point approx. 11 nm (yeah, I know) SE to avoid rougher terrain.

EDIT3: Forgot to mention that Emily's questions involved MARCO. Periapsis around 2500-3000 nm, imagery will be attempted but not guaranteed due to tech demo nature of mission. Was emphasized that the cams were off-the-shelf.

Here is a new version of the EDL simulation. Just a few tweaks, really, all I had time to do, but it includes the original ellipse and the new one that was presented at today's briefing. I could be wrong because I had just a few seconds to see it and it seemed to me its center was ENE and 11 km from the old. nprev says 11nm SE.
Anyway, here it is.
Fernando
 InSight_EDL_Sim.kmz ( 17.32K ) Number of downloads: 248

<shrug> I could be wrong too about the direction. Think that what was said was that the terrain 11 (nautical?) miles (note the units!) NW of the original target point was potentially unsuitable so TCM-6 was gonna shift away from that.

The landing point before TCM 6 was in less suitable terrain, so it's been moved 11 miles SW to a better place with TCM 6.

One question I never heard was how accurate is the desired landing point to where they actually land, usually ?

MARCO-B image released during today's briefing.

https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/th...pia22830-16.jpg

During the press briefing today, I just about fell out of my chair when they showed this example of one of the EDL status screens. Here's my best attempt at screenshotting it.

For those trying to figure out the geometry.......Martian north is basically 'down' in this image.

TCM update:

"At 1:47 p.m. PST (4:47 p.m. EST) engineers successfully conducted a last trajectory correction maneuver to steer the spacecraft within a few kilometers of its targeted entry point over Mars. Engineers still need to conduct a last trajectory correction maneuver to steer the spacecraft toward its entry point over Mars. About two hours before hitting the atmosphere, the entry, descent and landing (EDL) team might also upload some final tweaks to the algorithm that guides the spacecraft safely to the surface."

Source

That is a somewhat confusing report on activities. We did perform TCM6 today and it was very successful. We do not have any more TCM's to perform (that is the somewhat confusing portion of the report). Latest Navigation report show us very close to the entry corridor and estimates of the ground landing ellipse shows over 99% chance of landing on the perfect terrain for InSight (think Bonneville Salts Flat). The last portion is accurate in that the EDL tream is reviewing atmosphere models and entry location to set the last set of parameters for entry. Prop system preheats of the portions of the system used for EDL only (pressurization system and descent components) are well underway and looking good. Just about E-12 hrs and we are ready for EDL! Going to be a great day tomorrow! Go InSight and Go Marco!