InSight EDL, 26 Nov 2018 Options

[nprev]

Good morning from Los Angeles! Today at approximately 1954 GMT InSight will touch down in Elysium Planitia, and this is where we'll discuss all the events associated with that. NASA TV (link) will provide live coverage starting at 1900 GMT. Official status updates will be published here (link)

Here's a list of significant events (source: JPL). Times listed first are Earth-received US Pacific Standard Time (GMT-8):

11:40 a.m. PST (2:40 p.m. EST) — Separation from the cruise stage that carried the mission to Mars
11:41 a.m. PST (2:41 p.m. EST) — Turn to orient the spacecraft properly for atmospheric entry
11:47 a.m. PST (2:47 p.m. EST) — Atmospheric entry at about 12,300 mph (19,800 kph), beginning the entry, descent and landing phase
11:49 a.m. PST (2:49 p.m. EST) — Peak heating of the protective heat shield reaches about 2,700°F (about 1,500°C)
-15 seconds later — Peak deceleration, with the intense heating causing possible temporary dropouts in radio signals
11:51 a.m. PST (2:51 p.m. EST) — Parachute deployment
-15 seconds later — Separation from the heat shield
-10 seconds later — Deployment of the lander's three legs
11:52 a.m. PST (2:52 p.m. EST) — Activation of the radar that will sense the distance to the ground
11:53 a.m. PST (2:53 p.m. EST) — First acquisition of the radar signal
-20 seconds later — Separation from the back shell and parachute
-0.5 second later — The retrorockets, or descent engines, begin firing
-2.5 seconds later — Start of the "gravity turn" to get the lander into the proper orientation for landing
-22 seconds later — InSight begins slowing to a constant velocity (from 17 mph to a constant 5 mph, or from 27 kph to 8 kph) for its soft landing
11:54 a.m. PST (2:54 p.m. EST) — Expected touchdown on the surface of Mars
12:01 p.m. PST (3:01 p.m. EST) — "Beep" from InSight's X-band radio directly back to Earth, indicating InSight is alive and functioning on the surface of Mars
No earlier than 12:04 p.m. PST (3:04 p.m. EST), but possibly the next day — First image from InSight on the surface of Mars
No earlier than 5:35 p.m. PST (8:35 p.m. EST) — Confirmation from InSight via NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter that InSight's solar arrays have deployed


Get the peanuts ready, and let's land on Mars!

GO INSIGHT!!!

[propguy]

Just got back for a great dinner with family after EDL. This landing was great and the flight data almost looks like our sim data from the many EDL sims we did. Also a great match to Phoenix performance, so I hope we can do more of these than once every 10 years. Still very excited from my 2nd landing on Mars (now 2 for 3)! Was on InSight from the proposal phase, so 7 years of hard work came to fruition in in 7 minutes. Arrays deployed and we have positive power so short term we are very safe (never guess longer than short term).

The Marcos were great (if any Marco team members watch this forum thanks so much for the data)! We got Marco UHF carrier lock before we even separated from the cruise stage and telemetry well before entry interface. Never dropped data during EDL (even at backshell sep which expected). No ideas but I bet this technology will be on future lander programs. On PHX I focused on the prop system telemetry only (pressures and thruster on times). This time I watched the system performance (GNC rates, altitude and velocity), and I am glad that I did. I does look from the data we did a BAM to avoid the backshell (we had low horizontal rates), but need to review in more detail to be sure. Prop system worked great and thanks to all the suppliers who built the pieces for us. No way to compare the rush this event gave me (I have done lots of things in deep space including orbit insertions at Jupiter and Saturn) but nothing compares to seeing data like this during EDL! Much better than MPL (RIP, but without that failure we may not have had two successive successes). I am not involved in landed ops (no need for prop in that phase) but still hope all science goes great and just like PHX and Juno provides data that invalidates many previous theories (that is in my opinion the best reason to do these missions)! Getting tired so it is good night for me.