NASA Launches InSight to Mars (part 1)

From. Vandenberg, Air Force Base in central, California, you're, watching live launch coverage of NASA's interior, exploration, using. Seismic investigations. Geodesy, and heat, transport, or insight. Spacecraft, to, study the interior of Mars. Hi. I'm Stephanie Martin and thanks for joining us, NASA's. Insight, mission is the 20th, mission to Mars previous. Missions have taught us a lot about the planet's, surface. Atmosphere. And ionosphere. Inside. However will teach us about what goes on a mile or even, 2,000, miles below the surface, this. Will help us understand, how rocky planets, like Mars and Earth were formed and, why, the two planets are so different. 4.5. Billion years, later, today. We, have team coverage from, NASA's, Joshua, Finch Torrey, McClendon, Blair, Allen Chris, Gersh and Franklin. Fitzgerald, who are with launch teams across, the Air Force Base. Insight. Is flying on United. Launch alliances, Atlas five 401. Configuration. And has, a to our launch window starting. At 405. This morning Pacific time or, 7:05, Eastern, Time this. Means that launch teams have two hours from to liftoff from, Space Launch Complex 3. At Vandenberg, Air Force Base in. Sight. Is set to land on November 26, in the Elysium, Lanisha. Region. Of Mars which, is about, 373. Miles from the Gale Crater where. NASA's, Curiosity rover, touched, down in August 2012. After. Insight. Lands it will spend seven hundred and twenty eight days or a little over a Martian, year studying, the planets interior. Insight. Will be the red planet's, first thorough checkup since, it formed 4.5. Billion, years ago insight. Will take the vital signs of Mars specifically. Its pulse its temperature, and its reflexes. After. The spacecraft's. Roughly six month journey to Mars it will begin its landing phase. Insight. Enters the Martian atmosphere traveling. At 13,000. 200, miles per hour and deploys. Its parachute and ultimately, slows, down to, about 5 miles per hour for touchdown, one. Minute later insight will begin its surface operations checking. Out the Landers health indicators. And then, deploying its solar arrays. It. Will take about ten weeks to place all the instruments, on the ground about. Seven weeks later it, will sink. Itself, hammering, heat probe about. 10 to, 16 feet into the Martian soil, there. Are also two briefcase. Sized cube sets known, as Mars cube one or Marco, hitching. A ride on today's mission, as a part of a NASA technology, demonstration, mission, Marco. A and Marco, B will deploy from the second stage of the Atlas 5 about. A minute after insight, separates, and will, then fly toward, Mars. We. Are now about 30 minutes away from today's, launch let's check in with NASA's, Joshua, Finch in the mission director Center for a status on today's launch and a weather update Josh. Thank. You very much Stephanie I'm in the mission directors Center at Vandenberg, Air Force Base inside. Of that last launch control at the remote launch control center NASA launch manager Tim Dunn and United Launch Alliance launch, director, luma and Jerry are working, through, their step, stay with the countdown, toward liftoff the, entire launch team began on riving on console, a few hours ago and are working through the necessary steps, we. Are expecting, to receive a weather report from the US Air Force a 30th, Space Wing located. At Vandenberg, in just, about 30 seconds, and we'll bring that to you the. Weather team looks into a hole in sight a hole inside of weather related details, such as wind speed cloud, coverage potential, for lightning in the surrounding area and even solar weather which, launch teams need to know before committing, to launch.

Tonight's. Launch is a collaborative effort between NASA United. Launch Alliance and. The United States Air Force and. That. Briefings. In about five seconds, and we'll listen in. Attention. On the weather conference, set standby, for the weather briefing, all stations acknowledge elbow L RC, RC. LD, LD. Nlm. In, elimb FLD. OD. OD. But. Look. We pulling a s LD. Nothing. Heard l well provides latest l 0 status for safety and launch agency constraints, with probabilities, of violations, this. Is the elbow for. Range Safety weather, is green with, the T 0 POV. Of 0%, with, no areas of concern, the. Launch agency, weather is green with the T 0 POV, of 0%, with, no areas, of concern, the. Overall POV, is 0%, with, no areas of concern the. POV for, the scrub day t0, is 80%. With an area of concern for, Range Safety launch. Visibility, this. Concludes my brief, ello. Indicates, clear to proceed all stations, report, questions or acknowledged elbow, elbow. RC, RC. LD. LD, n LM in. Olympia. AFL, d OD. OD, flick, but. With, her conference that clear. And. As. You just heard that was the launch weather officer from, the 30th Space Wing lieutenant. Williams giving, launch teams that our final weather briefing, before tonight's launch there, is a zero percent probability, of violation for, tonight's launch the. Only concerns initially were a launch visibility, as you can see, on. Your screen when showing the rocket there is a lot of fog in the area an area of marine fog sort of settling, around the paddle though that's not a constraint for launch tonight. So. Good news for the launch teams. As. I mentioned this is a collaborative effort between NASA United. Launch Alliance and, the US Air Force the Air Force not only briefs the launch teams of weather which could impact launch but. They also keep the launch team aware of other considerations on the western range including, telemetry Public. Safety and update. Teams about colas Kohl's. Is. In reference to collision, avoidance analysis, done by the US Air Force team one, of the considerations is objects, in space for, example other satellites, around Earth that could be in the flight path of Atlas within. This to our launch window there could have been cutouts, we're launch teams would not have been able to live, however. This analysis. Is complete, and we have no cut outs due to colas, during, our launch window tonight, right.

Now You're looking at a live view of the launchpad Space Launch Complex 3e, and the. Atlas 5 and its 401. Configuration. The Atlas 5 is a two-stage, rocket and the number 401, indicates, a couple of key features about the rocket that will power NASA's, insight, on its journey to Mars the. 4 indicates a four meter fairing, inside, that protective, cover at the top of the rocket is where the spacecraft destined, to study the interior of Mars is tucked away the. Zero indicates, the number of solid rocket motors in this, case there are no solid rocket boosters for this mission and the, one indicates a single engine centaur. Upper stage thus, the 401. Space. Launch Complex 3 is United, Launch Alliance is at West Coast launch pad for the Atlas 5 at. Space Launch Complex 3, launch vehicle integration testing, spacecraft. Mate and integration, operations, happen in a mobile service tower just, beyond. Midnight the, mobile service tower was rolled back to its parking, position approximately 250. Feet southeast, of the rocket this will be the 15th Atlas, 5 launch from Space Launch, Complex 3. Right. Now we're at t-minus, 11. Minutes 27, seconds, all fueling, operations, are underway the, house 5 booster is being filled with liquid oxygen and rp1 a rocket great kerosene, that, field will power the first stages rd-180. Engine producing. More than eight hundred and sixty thousand. Pounds of thrust of theft off the. Centaur upper stage is also being filled with liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen the. Centaur upper stage is powered by a single Aerojet Rocketdyne RL. 10 C engine things. Are progressing toward liftoff for 405. A.m., Pacific we do have a two-hour window for tonight's launch attempt should launch attempts for, the teams need more time liftoff. Times are available in 5 min increments, throughout the window so. What's going on and while we follow the action here from Atlas launch control, we'll go back to you Stephanie, thanks. Josh, exploring. Mars helps, us understand, how our solar system was created and how planets. Evolve joining. Us now is NASA's Chris Kirsch he's, standing by with NASA, chief scientist, Jim green who, can tell us more about why we study Mars Chris, thanks.

Stephanie. Jim we're here at Vandenberg Air Force Base on the west coast and the cool thing is we're talking about a Mars mission, now. That an interplanetary, mission. Something that's going to leave the gravity, of the earth now, what happens, is Vandenberg's. Great, for putting, spacecraft. Into polar orbit, we, fire, straight, south and that way it goes over the ocean goes. Under, the South Pole comes, up on the other side of the earth and then takes this me, left, and heads, on out to Mars how, cool is that that is cool you know and you've been you've, been studying, Mars, for a long time used to be the marsh program manager and. Now we have insight and for the first time we're going to be looking at the vital signs underneath, the planet right a little bit more about that well, indeed it has some spectacular. Instruments. You know like the size set, of magnets, sorry, size a set of seismic. Measurements. It's already late for me it's a blob but you flop it down on the surface and and you, measure, them, you know some of the most sensitive marsquakes. Around, now we know Mars is quaking not. Only do we see avalanches. From. Orbit like with, MRO but, also, craters. New craters, come up and and, when Mars gets hammered like that it's got to be quaking so seismic, waves will be seen that's for sure and then, we'll tease, out what the structure of the interior, structure, of Mars is how big is it its core whether, that core is liquid, or at least an outer layer how big is the mantle and the crust. How. Do you take all that data we're, looking at the vital signs we have maven, who's studying the you, know the solar wind hitting atmosphere, we have the no curiosity on, a plant we have the satellites, orbiting Mars all, that, data that we have it sounds like we know a lot about Mars we, do and much, of that we have to connect, between, these. Missions, for. Instance, there's, a magnetometer. You. Know an, instrument, that measures magnetic, fields, on, insight. Now Mars, doesn't have a magnetic field right however, the. Solar wind when it hits the, planet hits, the ionosphere, causes. This huge, current, to occur it, can be measured on the surface, by that magnetometer. And someone, really hefty solar wind hits Mars we're. Gonna see that and that's going to be really fantastic that, that current, will. Be connected, with the maven mission so we'll understand, better the stripping, mechanism, that's going on now I understand, on this particular mission we have something special and I think you have something in your pocket we. Do let's share that with our viewers. It's. A little chip let's, say I'll go this way, yep. And and. This little chip has got. 2.4. Million. Names, on, it you know we had a website we opened the opportunity, up for, people. To. Indeed submit. Their name my name is onerous okay, and so. You got to give me a little time to run out and weld. It to the deck you know I'd say on, that note thank you so much Jim we're looking forward to the launched in less than a half hour and I'm. Sure you got a pretty good spot to see their lunch absolutely. And of course as we say go, inside. Stefon. Jim has a ton of energy he's been up over 24, hours let's. Take it back to you thanks. So much the. Journey to today's launch has been a long time in the making here's. A highlight reel of all of the work that the teams here at Vandenberg Air Force Base have done to prepare for today's launch.

We. Are now about 20 minutes away from today's launch let's, go back to NASA's Joshua Finch in the mission director Center for an update Josh, Thank. You Stephanie things still progress toward at liftoff at 4:05. A.m. Pacific. Time again, I'm in the mission directors Center on Vandenberg, Air Force Base listening. In to the launch teams as they move through the necessary steps, to bring, us to liftoff. We're. Getting about just a minute away from a hole in the team - account for about 50, seconds, away from that hole in the count although, the t clock stops or pauses. Launch team to continue to work diligently toward, lift off the t clock is the official, countdown clock and is stopped at the t-minus four mark in the count and holds, for 15 minutes at, the end of the hole the team - and L - counts will be synced and only, four minutes will remain until launch. We. Have about 30 seconds, left till we hit, that pause in the count. I'll, see this is my control go, for control yeah, I have a series of yellow, alarms for, our school switch miss compares. We. Think we understand what, the. Cause of it was. Sounds. Like there was a, witch. On when they switched, to attempted. To switch the secondary decom and we have now entered the hold in the team - count the, L o'clock still continues so what they launch - o'clock were at 18 minutes 50. Seconds until liftoff. This. Is the first interplanetary launch, for NASA from the west coast but NASA is no stranger, to the Atlas 5 rocket which, you see on the screen in fact, this launch of insight on the Atlas 5 will, be the 17th, time NASA has flown a spacecraft, on this, rocket all, previous, NASA interplanetary, missions have launched from Florida's Atlantic coast, at either Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, or the adjacent, NASA's Kennedy Space Center launching. Toward the east as the momentum of Earth's eastward rotation, - the launch vehicles on thrust for, insight the Atlas 401. Offers. Enough performance to enable launching a mission to Mars southward. From Vandenberg the, propulsion, for pushing insight from Earth to Mars comes from the launch vehicle rather, than the spacecraft, itself at, liftoff, NASA's, in speights insight. Spacecraft, will begin its six-month journey, the. Atlas in just over a minute is traveling, faster, than the speed of sound after liftoff at, two and a half minutes into flight the rocket weighs, less than half of its original weight and liftoff, and the, first stage engine birds all of its propellant or fuel by, about four and a half minutes after the Rockets first stage has jettison, the. Second stage engine ignites for the first of two burns and the protective. Payload, fairing at the top of the rocket will have been jettisoned at, one-and-a-half minutes after liftoff the. Insight spacecraft, and two cubes apps called Marco hitching a ride to Mars will, have separated, the Centaur second stage here's, a detailed look after United Launch Alliance Atlas, 5 mission, profile. 5. 4, 3. 2, we. Have ignition of the rd-180, main engine 1. Liftoff. Of the United, Launch Alliance Atlas five rocket. The, Atlas 5 rd-180. Main engine ignites that generates, more than eight hundred sixty. Thousand, pounds of thrust and, lift the rocket away from the pad, shortly. After liftoff Atlas. Begins a pitcher to attain the proper flight path while, minimizing, the pressure the vehicle experiences, during flight. The, Atlas 5 reaches, Mach 1 the speed of sound at 1 minutes 17 seconds. At four minutes four seconds for pallet bubbles deplete and the main engine shuts down, six. Seconds later the Atlas centaur, separation, system activates, to release the booster stage the, vehicle now weighs a little more than 7%, of what it did liftoff, at. Four minutes 20 seconds, the first centaur, main engine burn begins, sending, the Centaur it was circular, orbit. Approaching. Payload fairing jettison the, Centaur is burning propellant at, a rate of 51, pounds per second traveling, at more than 10,000. Miles per hour and located, 79, miles in altitude and. 252. Miles downrange. During. Ascent insight, is protected, inside a four meter diameter payload. Fairing and approximately. Four minutes 28 seconds, the payload, fairing is jettisoned, at. 13 minutes 16. Seconds, cut off of the Centaur main engine or Miko one occurs the, mission now enters in our long coast bays. At nearly 1 hour and 15 minutes the, centaur main engine is restarted for, the second and final bird placing. Center on its path to spacecraft, separation.

Approximately. Four minutes and 49 seconds, later final. Cutoff of the Centaur main engine occurs. At one hour twenty-eight minutes and 40 seconds centaur, releases, NASA's insight spacecraft, on, its journey to Mars. Deploying. From dispensers, mounted, on the aft bulkhead, carrier, on centaur the Mars cube one or Marco, cube sets will, provide real-time, communication. Relay covering, the entry descent and landing of. Insight on Mars. Marco. A separates. One hour twenty, nine minutes into flight follow. 48 seconds later by, the separation, of Marco, beanie. From. The mission director center we're about t-minus. Four, minutes and holding we, have about. 14, minutes 40. Seconds left before a liftoff with, that we'll go back to Stephanie Martin it's definitely. Hi. I'm Stephanie Martin for those of you just joining us on social media we'd like to welcome to welcome, you to launch coverage of insight, which, will MIT will, give Mars its first thorough checkup since, it formed four and a half billion. Years ago, insight. Will take the vital signs of Mars including its pulse its temperature, and, its reflexes. Insight. Is flying on United, Launch alliances, Atlas, 5 401. Configuration. And has, a to our launch window starting, at 405, this. Morning Pacific time or 7:05, Eastern Time this, means that the launch team has two hours to liftoff from Space Launch Complex 3, at Vandenberg, Air Force Base in sight. Is set to land on November 26th, in the Elysium, Tunisia region. Of Mars which is about, 373. Miles than, we get from the Gale Crater where. NASA's Curiosity rover, landed, in August 2012. After. Insight, lands it will spend 728. Earth days or a little over a Martian year studying, the planets interior. After. The spacecraft's, roughly. Six-month journey to Mars it will begin its landing phase, insight. Will be the red planet's, first thorough checkup since it formed four and a half billion, years ago. Insight. Will take the vital signs of Mars its pulse its temperature, and its reflexes. After. Insight enters the Martian atmosphere traveling. Thirteen thousand two hundred miles per hour it deploys, its parachute and ultimately slows, down to five miles per hour for touchdown. One. Minute later insight will begin surface operations checking. Out the Landers health indicators, then, deploying its two solar arrays it. Will take about ten weeks to place all the instruments, onto the ground and about seven weeks later this self hammering, heat probe will, reach ten to sixteen feet into the Martian soil, there. Are about two brief, case, sized cubes ATS known as Mars cube one or Marco hitching, a ride on today's mission. Now. With that let's, go back to NASA's Joshua Finch and the mission directors, Center I. Take. That back NASA's, new administrator, Jim bridenstine shares, his thoughts on NASA's, insight mission the. Future missions. For human exploration plans. And what, NASA's impact, is on the world. So. What Mars insight, Lander is gonna allow us to do is really map. The inside of, Mars this is an important mission not. Just for the United States but an important mission for the world so we can better understand, why. Planets change, and, ultimately, understand, even more about our own planet I think the one thing that really excites everybody. Is a, question, that we ask ourselves over, and over again which is are, we alone in. The universe is there. Potential, for life on a planet, that's not our own and one of the things that we want to do with Mars 2020, which, is going to launch during the next window we have to go to Mars is understand. If there was a potential, or, maybe even Mars. Might have at one time hosted, life if, we want to get as much science, as we can as fast, as we can, we need to get really good at using robots we're gonna have robotic missions to the moon before we have humans.

Go To the moon so that we can get the most out of our human science missions and that's true on Mars as well this president and vice president are. Very committed to getting America. Back to the surface of the Moon as fast as possible. Earth. Because, we live here and it's, the only planet we know that can host life so we better take care of it. When. I was five years old. They made, us draw what we wanted to be when we grew up and I drove I drew a picture of an airplane I had, a picture of myself there wearing a hat, that I thought airline pilots, wore as a, pilot in the Navy I became, very dependent, on space-related capability. And a lot of the technologies. That come, from NASA have. Multiple, uses and. Have transformed, the way we live our lives so, people. Say what why are you interested in space I think the question is why, wouldn't you be interested in space it's critical, to, our everyday lives. So. This is this is a critical mission for our country it's a critical mission for the world these. Are some of the brightest, minds that our country, has we've got great international, partners and our, nation. Is grateful and in fact the world is grateful for their service. It. Is great to hear from our new NASA Administrator, now, remember you can follow him on twitter using, at ridin. Stein. We're. Now a little more than nine minutes away from today's launch let's go to NASA's Joshua, Finch in the mission director Center for the final countdown of today's launch Josh. Thank. You very much Stephanie and I'm actually being joined by Alisa Macbeth from United Launch Alliance well, this is gonna give us a little more insight in today's mission, Alisa, can you tell me about, your role at ula, and what it's like to work for insight yeah thanks for having me here so I work at the launch site I'm an systems, engineer, for launch. Operations, mainly in the avionics department, so that covers everything from batteries, to harnessing, to, the flight boxes that takes. The rocket to where it needs to go in the in outer space. My. Personal, role I'm also involved with ordnance, so installing all the pyrotechnics, that separate, the stages, separate. The spacecraft, from the. Vehicle, on-orbit, those. Kinds of things so that's, mainly what I'm involved with and, on inside I was able -. It's. My first West Coast launch and. On inside I was able to come out here for the past couple weeks and do, just that install, batteries install. Some ordnance and do some final connections, so. You're often on console for ula, launches can you tell us what it's like to be on console, absolutely. Yeah so on console is it's, an experience, it's very exciting. The. The, adrenaline, in the room you can feel the energy. There's. A lot of system testing happening, just, to prepare the the rocket for launch and verify that everything is in configuration, and nominal. We. Fuel the rocket at that point t-minus.

Two Hours and Counting and then it's. Really just a. Some. Final checks to verify that everything is good we've got us a team, of people at the launch site on sitting, on console as well as our our, certified, responsible, engineers, in Denver, who are also having a second set of eyes on. The systems as well and, so can you tell me what's happened up to this point of the countdown and what we can expect before launch yeah, so we're getting up to the terminal, count now so this, is terminal, count as t-minus, four minutes and Counting so up to this point the, rocket is fully fueled we're. Doing some final system checks all of the all of the testing that I had talked about earlier is completed, and, we are doing, our final, we're, ready to go, so. We'll get into a status, here. Soon and all, the systems will go through and say yep we're good to go and. What. Were you ready and we're about ten seconds away from that poll now so let's listen in okay. Lcac, all 97, minutes go, easy. Confirmation. From OS that we are in the correct RF patch configuration. Roger. Status. Check to proceed with terminal count, Atlas systems propulsion go. Hydraulics. Go pneumatics. Go, hello to go, water, go. Centaur, systems propulsion go. Pneumatics, go, hello, to go. LH, to go, has, gas go, electrical. Systems airborne go. Round. Go. Facility. Go, RSF, - yes go, flight, control go TC, cubed go, calm. Go. Umbilicals. Go, yes. Go, redline. Monitor go quality, so. Op. Safety manager go ula, safety officer go, vehicle. System engineer go, anomaly. Chief ACS, go range, coordinator, clear, to proceed launch, director, LC. You have permission to launch. Proceeding. With the count hey, LC you verify to zero is set for, 11:05. Zulu verified. OS. Start list data capture and. As. You've heard that pole is now complete, we are still within the hold the team - for mark but. With the L clock were about 5 minutes 40 seconds away from launch well. This is one last question for you you have teams working at this launch site and then you have teams and you had company headquarters, in Colorado can you tell them tell me about how they are working together, yeah. Definitely so, in Denver. Like I said those are our certified so responsible, engineers, so these are the experts, in the system they know everything. Down to the to, the minut detail, so. They were looking at the data as an, overall system but, also digging into the details at the launch site where we're in the countdown so we're running the tests we're. Sending commands we're doing the button we're pressing buttons, and doing. Those kinds of things and working. Together with them as a, full team ula, team to, get. It ready, sounds great and thank you very much for being. With us today for the launch and we'll continue the countdown Thank, you very thanks so much. And. With that we'll continue. Keeping track of all the things that are happening as we lead toward, liftoff so let's get you up to speed at first welcome to those who are just joining us, on. Social, media as you, can see we have a little bit of fog in the area today you can see the Atlas 5 and its 401, configuration. And it's stacked on a launch site at Space, Launch Complex 30, the West Coast launch site for the Atlas 5 the. Atlas 5 has many different configurations but. This 401 configuration, means that we, have a four meter payload fairing at the top the, zero indicates there are no solid rocket motors for this mission and the, one indicates we have a single engine centaur, upper stage.

We. Are about 10 seconds, away from. Coming. Out of the hold in our count. 4. 3. 2, 1. And. We. Are at t-minus, four minutes and Counting. The. United States Air Force has been monitoring weather for us and as you can see some fog on your screen, some, visibility issues, but, that's not a constraint for launch today so we are green on the range in terms of whether the, air force range is also responsible public safety during launches from here on the west coast and has been coordinating, with United Launch Alliance and the NASA teams and showing, that launch area and the flight path are clear for, the launch of the Atlas 5 rocket and, we have no collision. Avoidance cutouts or colas, during the window today but, right now we're tracking to a 405. Pacific. Time launch. We're. At t-minus three. Minutes 20. Seconds and counting. The. Atlas boosters and centaur liquid oxygen tanks for flight levels the, NASA launch manager Tim Dunn has pulled his launch team. The. United States launched the United Launch Alliance the launch conductor lumen. Jerry brief lock teams ahead of the terminal count. The. Launch character is also verified with a range controller that solar radiation, is acceptable, for launch. Thanks. To pressure. We're. Two minutes 45, seconds to launch. The. Flight termination system, on the Atlas 5 has just gone to internal. Or, at just about t-minus, two, minutes and Counting. You. Go internal. 1:55. Watch. Sequencer, start. 150. Securing. Centaur LHC to their. Infant rlo to. 140. Watching. Abel 137. FPS. Armed. You're, looking at a live shot the encapsulated, spacecraft, on, top of the rocket at Space Launch Complex 3, well, do you harm. John. Smith or flight path tonight will be a south eastern direction hugging, the coast of Southern California, in Mexico. El. Bloque. We're. About one minute five, seconds away from launch. You. - one minute rock, report, range status, rock. Rainbow green. And. We have just heard confirmation, that the range is green, after. Launch we'll be hearing the voice of United Launch alliances, Marty, Malinowski. Status. Of the flight of the Atlas 5 and NASA's, insight. -. Forty second we. Are listening in to they've landed in a three count down. -. 28 seconds. 25. Gotta. Check go, atlas go, Center go. Insight. We're. At t-minus 15. Seconds. Eight. Seven. Liftoff. Of the Atlas, 5 launching. A first interplanetary, mission. From the west coast and NASA's, insight the first outer space, robotic, Explorer to study the interior of Mars. Rd-180. Continues, look at this point mission, deck, refreshes pump speeds expected. Regions. To. Ratio controlling. Within expected parameters. The, rd-180. And 180, engine providing 860. Thousand pounds of thrust. The. Compadre rates continual look good. All, booster, systems, look nominal, at this point.

Marquand. The. Rocket is now traveling faster than the speed of sound. Coming. Up the rocky, internet. Excu. This. Is the point where mechanical stress in the rocket reaches its peak because, of the Rockets velocity. And resistance, created by Earth's atmosphere. Coming. Up on the throttle, down. Grass. Rattled, back right on schedule signatures, look good pump. Speeds and check the pressures continue to look pregnant. And. Are. You rates controlling down the middle, earn. Altitude, is 13. Miles downrange, distance seven, miles current, velocity, nineteen. Hundred and sixty-five, miles per hour. Well, loop guidance has begun. The. First part of the flight was pre-programmed trajectory. Now the rocket is giving itself feedback on his flight path and, Q, alpha Stern has begun, are you rich look good. Pump. Speeds and retro pressures all within band. Arceus. Pyrovile, has been fired. System. Is now pressurized, in flight level signatures, look good. Burn. Altitude is thirty miles downrange, distance 43. Miles current velocity four, thousand, five hundred forty two miles per hour. You're. Looking at a live view from the, Atlas five rocket the, rd-180. Engine continues, to burn, look. Good already, 180 still performing, well. You. Off the steering has been. Completed. Rooster, is now one-quarter, if it's liftoff weight. Currently. Flying. At four G's acceleration. Whose. Phase cooldown has begun, of a pyro valve has been fired. Moving. The throttle to five g's. Later. Three minutes 50 seconds into flight and we're nearing booster engine cutoff or Pico, G's. In preparation, for Pico boost phase cooldown has completed. And. We hit Pico shut. Down looks good, and. The. Rd-180. 180, engine on the first stage of the Atlas 5 has, shut down stage. Separation, they. Have box, and fuel chrisberg between to purge burned the RCS is underway. We. Have ignition and full. Thrust on the RL 10. And. The second stage stage, engine that are Elton has ignited. And. We have indication, of payload fairing jettison such, a good step and. The. Payload fairing that was encapsulating. The inside spacecraft, has, been jettisoned the RL. 10 C engine the second stage of the centaur continues. To burn. You're. Looking at live animation, telemetry. Very. Good, of. The, Centaur second stage on its flight path /. GN, to perch ferns, underway. As. You can see to the bottom right of your screen the, flight path of the rocket. And. Some. Tire has gone to closed-loop, view control, in. A slightly fuel-rich extra. Ratio correction. And a, quick look at the booster. Stage performance, shows a very, nominal booster. For. Those of you that are just joining us we had an on-time. Liftoff, of the Atlas 5 rocket carrying. NASA's inside. Spacecraft, as. Well as two small. Cube sets called Marco. Burn. Is scheduled, for 8, minutes and 56. Seconds, and white. You. Are looking at a live shot of the Centaur second, stage the, RL 10 C engine providing. Thrust, and. The. RCS, flying temperatures, are warming bottle, tempters as expected. Center, Nelkin going just slightly feel rich. Chamber. Pressures locks pump discharge and, fuel venturi all within band. Weird, seven minutes 15 seconds, into. The flight. Inside. Being taken to, his trajectory this will be the first of two, burns of the second stage, systems. Look very good this portion, of burn. Up. On the role. To optimize, to teacher ceased. And. Teacher ceased as a tracking data. Relay satellite East. And the, rl10, again continues, perform, very well in requesting. A fuel rich condition at, this point burn, chamber. Pressures, flux pump discharge and, fuel venturi, all, parameter. RCS. Line temperatures, have early achieved bottle temperatures. You. Need to see our thermal conditioning, firings on the RCS.

Thank. Pressures are stable. Higher. Eights look good. Storage. Bottle levels, are excellent. We. Are just over nine minutes into the flight of insight. And central, view is. You. Continue to see the flight path on the bottom right of your screen, Centaurus currently fine an altitude of, 136. Miles downrange, distance is, twelve hundred and sixty one miles current, velocity fourteen thousand, sixty, six miles per hour. This. Trajectory of the flight path will. Put the spacecraft in the centaur in a park, orbit before crossing the equator it. Will go around the southern tip of South, America it. Will cross the southern edge of the Atlantic Ocean come. Up over the Indian Ocean to the east of Africa and cross, over India. As. Expected, for the cenomar. Centaurs. Currently, at an altitude of, 131. Miles downrange. Distance fourteen. Hundred and sixty, one miles burned. Boss T fourteen, thousand, seven hundred and ninety miles per hour. We, are 11 minutes into the flight of insight. We. Have about two more minutes left in the first burn of the second stage rl10. Engine. Body. Rates. Auto. Pressures, all in, family. We're coming up on about one minute left in the burn of, the oral ten of the second stage. One. Minute remains in this first Burn Center. Key. You can go on their nominal, Carleton. Chamber. Pressure LOX pump discharge and, fueled in theory all, appropriate, for the said I'm armed, RCS. Line temperatures, look good. It'll. Seeing thermal, auditioning. Firings. And we, are now 13, minutes into flight very. Close to the second. Stage engine cutting off for the first time for, one of two burns there, is no orbital. And, we have Miko and shut down looks good we have four s7, motors on. And. You just heard confirmation, from United Launch Alliance Marty, Malinowski, that. We've had Miko the second stage engine has cut off for the first time the, first burn of the second stage are Elton being, complete we, now begin the long coast phase of this mission the Coast phase will end when the are elton engine ignites for the second time for, five minutes started, a second centaur. Burn will begin over, northeast Russia the end of the second centaur burn will. Be completed, over the Northern Pacific Ocean. After. The end of the second burn, will, Coast for about nine minutes so that the Goldstone, Deep, Space Network is in view for the separation events, of the, inside spacecraft, and the two Marco spacecraft that are traveling along and that. Will happen over, northeastern. Pacific Ocean, off the coast of Oregon. So. With the long coast phase underway. We'll now go back to Stephanie Martin Stephanie, thanks. Josh for, missions to other planets, the flight path has to be extremely, precise, to ensure the spacecraft, lands or orbits, in the correct direction. NASA's. Amanda Griffin sat down with Callie Burke the trajectory, analysis, analyst for, the insight mission to learn more about her work for today's mission. So. Callie tell us a little bit about your role for insight, my. Role is the trajectory analyst, here at the launch services program and so, my, job is to make sure that the rocket drops the spacecraft, off at the right place and time in space we, have to consider these, really complex journeys you know it's it's not just doing an equation once the. Jet Propulsion lab, they do these things called pork chop plots and so they consider multi. Many, months they could launch in many months they could land on Mars what's. The weather conditions, gonna be like when they get there do we have we want to get communication, during landing so are the right satellites, in place or are we looking back at earth at that time in the line in sight there's, all these, considerations, and, so we.

Have 35, days we're looking at that, we're launching but, only one day that we're gonna land we, actually have a, two-hour window that we're able to do on each day and so, that's 25. Opportunities, so there's 875. Possible. Ones we and, Wow. Yeah so to launch from California. What's different here from Florida we, launched east safely, and we can go so much to the north and somewhat from the south but, from Vandenberg if, they launch East they're flying over people, and so we don't want that so we can launch to the southeast, as we are for insight. And then. We can continue going, west and, launch. Safely, so we've heard a lot about planetary, protection so. What is that and what is your team doing to try to help mitigate that it Mars so we have somebody here at NASA who's called the planetary, protection officer. Which. After, a nine-year-old applied I now joking that's the guardian the galaxy. That's. Why you said he'd be great but, the planetary, protection officer. Looks. To both protect Earth from any microbes, we bring from space and then, we also consider, Mars in Europa where we think there might be life we, want to protect them forming earth bugs and basically, creating, life somewhere as opposed to finding it the, spacecraft, which we we plan to have land on Mars have been very specially clean there's a whole team but, we don't do that with a rocket, we, actually, aim the trajectory a little, bit away from Mars we don't aim it straight at Mars. So. That we don't pollute Mars, well here's wishing you all nominal. Calls, launch, day thank you successful, flight thanks, to Kelly. We. Are 17, minutes into the flight of NASA's, insight spacecraft, on its way to Mars our. Own tour, in the Clendon is in the remote. Launch control, center with, Scott Messer the United Launch Alliance program, manager for NASA missions, to, get an update on today's launch Tori. Thank. You so Scott tell. Us how it's going so far well, so far Tory things are really good it's a very nominal account, and it's.

A Beautiful, beautiful launch little foggy out there but, well. And right, on track all. Right so as, we. All know United, Launch Alliance is definitely, no stranger to Mars missions you've launched the spirit. And opportunity and, the, curiosity, Rover's so what is it like to now have sent, insight. On its way to Mars yeah, so you're, right we're, very excited we've, have. Actually launched every Mars mission since 1960. So we're. Know we've. Done a lot of them and that but this one is super exciting, obviously because, we. First, launched from the west coast of a planetary, mission onto Mars so it's, very exciting and anytime. We go to Mars it's very exciting for us to. Give. Our customer a great ride and great. Mission success so that the insight, mission can do what it needs to do when it gets to Mars. So. This, has have been a very busy year for you guys so far let's. See this is the fifth launch. For United Launch Alliance in so far in 2018, at the second NASA mission all right so what's up next for the team so. I've, still got two more missions left to go we've. Got the Parker Solar Probe mission, going. To the Sun which launches in July and then of course our, last, Delta 2 mission which launches, in September, from out here in, Vandenberg. So a busy. Year for us with four missions and. Very. Excited No, thank you very much we're. Looking forward to the rest, of the year the rest of today thanks. Stephanie back to you. Thanks. Story with, many scientific, missions NASA partners, with international, space agencies to, explore and discover new science. In, fact insight. Has instruments, from France's, national space, agency, called knez and the, German Aerospace Center. Known. As DLR. NASA's. Blair Allen. Has more. Thanks. So much Stephanie yes. It's very exciting we, just witnessed, an incredible launch, and we're here with two very important. Members of the space, community, Jean, Yves and Pascal, thanks for being on the show thank. You so I'll, start with you Jenny. Just. Thinking about the significance, of insight and the partnership, tell, us a little bit about what it means for the French Space Agency to launch, and see a launch of the insight mission in, fact as, you know we have a very strong scientific, community, in France which, is totally, devoted to Mars and this, is why we, are on number, of mass missions, and for us inside. His perhaps, not. View teammate about a very very important, mission because, we are going to ear to beat the art of mass with the, Seas no matter that we put a lot of insight and. Obviously. The that's that. Instrument, is very important. To the data that we'll get back so we're very appreciative, that you're participating as, well yes, and as, you know NASA. Is very selective in, the choice which are made and we are very proud to have been selected and, to. Have a very, strong partnership with NASA, and JPL during, the last 10 years and I. Am sure that we, will have a tremendous success so once we receive, the data absolutely. Absolutely in, Pascal how about for you in the German Space Agency, tell us a little bit about what it means to see the, significant. Mission start today well. Germany. Is active, in Mars exploration. Since more than two decades, just. Do, you remember Mars Express and a high-resolution stereo. Come a scanning, still, the, surface of Mars and also, contributing, to many other u.s. missions. To Mars and we are very very excited today that. You. Know our instrument. The heat flow and. Surface. Properties, packages, hp3, much easier to remember, will. You, know is onboard is on the way to Mars and will really reveal, new. Insights about, the interior of Mars yeah. And this is really exciting here tonight because we, have a. Scientist. By, profession. An engineer. Tell, me Pascal a little bit about what it means for you as an astrophysicist, from. That perspective what, it means for you to Siemens insight, launch well. I think we, want to understand our neighbor planet, Mars. It. Had a very similar, history. In 4.5. Billion years ago we want to understand, how the. Planet evolved, and developed it's, important, to understand, how terrestrial. Planets. Evolved. And we learn from the experiments. On inside, about that and I think one of the important, things is also that is really linked to you. Know how life actually originated. On earth. And eventually, on Mars and that, is a very important. Aspect. Absolutely. Thanks so much and Johnny, an.

Engineering, Perspective how. It feel for you as a former, engineer to. Launching. To Mark's is probably, the ultimate on she's it's my firm launch to Mars I was in Baikonur, in June, 2003. For mass express I was also in Baikonur, in March, 2016. For, the first exam marks and tonight but, vo, so long she's finally, are very simple you have to launch yeah you have to launch to, who's to, land and to discover and this is probably the ultimate omission, for, an, engineer, well said and thank you both for being on the show we really appreciate, it and we're as, excited, as you guys are to see Mars insight land and start getting inside, the Martian surface so. Back. To you Stephanie, it's very exciting I hope that you can sense the excitement of myself. And the international, community here, Thank. You Blair we're, so excited here, in the studio as well now, we want to test your knowledge for those of you tuned in online we've got some insight, trivia do, you know the answers. You. Understanding. The complex geological. Formation, of Mars is an essential part of helping us discover how, our own planets, future could, unfold soos, Mercker the deputy principal investigator, for insight, is onset. With Blaire Allen from NASA edge to talk about what's happening, beneath, the, Martian surface Blaire. Thanks. So much Stephanie sue. I gotta tell you before we get started about the interior. Of Mars tell, me what. Was your experience, during, the launch. It. Was fantastic. It was physical. I could feel the ground vibrating. The, car alarms are going off, and. I saw a little spark. But. That's about it but it was you, know it was just, as, emotional, as if. We, if, there was no fog in the way so it's on its way and it. Was really well. I'm so, glad I felt the same way I didn't, see it obviously but. Did feel it and I tell, you it really is exciting, and now we're underway and so let's, talk a little bit about what's, gonna happen once. Insight, gets there because the big objective. Is to get under the surface so tell us a little bit about the science of getting underneath the surface of Mars okay so. Our. Main instrument, is a seismometer, and so we use that to image. The interior of the planet basically. Anytime, a, quake, goes, off it'll. Travel through, the interior Mars it'll bounce off different, density, layers and, so you. Know it's it's like like a sonogram it'll, bounce off when, a change in, the, density, of the planet so, we're gonna measure. The thickness of the crust we're, going to, determine. The seismic. Velocity the, mantle which tells us about its temperature and we're. Going to determine, the size of the core so, all that structure now, I'm wondering the, particular location. That insight where it lands, was. That chosen. Based on geological. Activity. Or or, tell me a little bit about the, region, you're landing it so. We're going to Elysium, Planitia. And. You. Know we are a competed mission so we, are trying to do things on a budget and with. The lander. It's a it's a copy if, you will of the Phoenix lander so it had already kind of had some engineering, constraints. That man we can only land at a certain, altitude, on Mars you know we go and we, don't want to crash we don't want to you know and, we. Also are solar powers we need to be near the equator right so, that actually, narrows. It down a lot, and. Then, the last thing that we wanted is, someplace where we can burrow.

Our Mole yeah, for the heat flow under the ground and, happily. Mars provides, a, window, into its. Subsurface. Via impact, craters so. Our. Landing site lead, Matt galumbeck, and. Many, many students mapped. Hundreds. Of impact, craters and determined. The depth at which there's a competent, rock layer so we found a place where, we get them all down without worrying about that rock layer depth well, I guess that's going to be pretty pretty, important, for the mission because it's going down pretty, deep I understand, yeah up to 16 feet so. We, think the first 30, feet or so should be should be okay in our region that well that's incredible, now tell me a little bit about this mole what. Kind of data are you actually getting, with that sensitive, instrument, yeah so it. Hammers. Itself down and stops every about a foot and a half and. It sends out a heat pulse which tells us about the, thermal conductivity of the soil and then. It keeps, on hammering and in steps. Down. To about. 16 feet at, that depth we're away from temperature. Changes. Due to day/night. Changes. Seasonal, changes and we're just getting the the heat coming out of the planet so we actually measure the thermal gradient, with. A string of temperature sensors that the mole pulls behind it so, with, that thermal, gradient and and thermal, conductivity we, get the heat coming out of the interior of the planet so. I tell you it sounds like you've got the bases, covered, well listen thanks so much for being on the show and good luck to you and the rest of the insight team Stephanie. We're learning a ton about what's going on with insight thank, you so much take care back in the studio and keep giving us good information on, the progress of the, Atlas 5 and, centaur as they head to Mars. Thank. You so much we're about 31, minutes into, today's flight of NASA's, insights spacecraft, on its way to Mars let's. Check back in with Joshua, Finch in the mission director Center for an update on the flight. Thank. You Stephanie we had an on-time lift off today at 405. Pacific, the Atlas, 5 rocket roared. To life with the insight, spacecraft. The, insight spacecraft, is now as you see on your screen to this animation, is, traveling. With the second stage the second stage is on a Coast phase the rl10, engine, ignited. For the first time and did its burn and has now shut off and we're in a Coast phase as you can see from the bottom right of your screen we're traveling just. Over the southern tip of South America and this, burn, will. Be the first. Bernal was the first, of two that will do the, second burn we'll, put the, spacecraft in the proper proper proper trajectory. And, it will Coast. For about nine minutes after this completion, of that second stage burn and then it will released the inside spacecraft, and then a few moments later released, the two Marco, spacecraft at the bottom, but. A beautiful beautiful liftoff, in the pre-dawn, sky at Vandenberg Air Force Base on, the Central Coast of California it, was fog in the area yet no constraint, to launch and speaking. Of watch let's bring you some launch replays, right now. And. On, your screen you can see some animation, of the second stage centaur, with the inside spacecraft, atop and, at. The bottom of the Centaur the two Marco, spacecraft, we're. In the long. Coast phase of our mission and, for, right now we've got some more Mars trivia, for you and we'll bring that to you right now. And, you can see the insight. Spacecraft, atop this second stage centaur, of, the Atlas 5 rocket, continuing. On its flight path, we. Do have an on-time liftoff at 4:05, a.m. Pacific. Time a nice. Launch in the pre-dawn sky at Vandenberg Air Force Base, we're. Still in our long coast phase for this mission before, the second burn, at the second stage engine and while. We're waiting we'll now go back to Stephanie Martin for more Stephanie. Thanks. Josh the, twin Marco cube SATs will be the first small satellites, to leave Earth's orbit, if the, technology demonstration is, successful, they hold a lot of promise for the scientific community, NASA's. Chris Gerst is with with. Joel the marco lead mechanical, engineer, at NASA's, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Chris hey. Thanks defi to, Joe tell. Me about the watch oh it was fantastic. Even. Through the fog you could feel the Rockets out lifting, off of the pad and. Successfully. Clearing the tower and getting, on its voyage a, really exciting time now, take us through the next phases for from Marco a.m. be sure, so after about 90, minutes, the.

Insight, Spacecraft. Will deploy 60. Seconds after that the first Marco, spacecraft will. Also, deploy off the second stage stage. Will roll 180, degrees and then the second Marco will deploy okay, so. That's that's interesting because you're. Gonna what you're gonna let the insight, spacecraft, go first absolutely. And you guys are gonna be trailing correct, yeah we we, all deploy off in slightly different directions, and then we fly as a loose cluster, together over, our six-month trip to Mars now, how do you think Marco a and, B how, they gonna feel following. Insight all the way to Mars sure well that's it's, exactly our point we are we, are there to trail inside, and we're or. We're eagerly awaiting, our chance to fly over and and catch, up with them as they go through entry descent and landing and. We, fly over and are able to relay their message back to the eagerly, awaiting ears here on earth now. This is this is pretty cool because this is the first time we're taking a cube set that's, traveling, you know out of low Earth orbit and going to another planet, kind. Of take us through that process I mean what, are some of the challenges of actually designing, a CubeSat, you. Know constructing. It and getting it ready for her. Flight absolutely. Space. Is hard that's. One. Of the difficulties, with with any type of satellite and with the Marco CubeSat there's nothing any difference. Traditionally. Cube sets in low-earth orbit. You're close to home you have a lot of opportunities, to talk to to, your spacecraft you're, in an environment, that repeats itself since you're orbiting, the same body over and over as you get, into deep space, you're in, a much different environment you're, perpetually, moving further and further away from the Sun you get less and less power every, day your, environment, is changing. Additionally. You, are very, far from everything that is familiar there's no GPS there's, no ways that can help you navigate that's. The. Deep space network is your only way to phone home okay one, of the technologies, that Marco, is demonstrating, on this mission is. A brand new radio very. Similar, to what is flown on these larger spacecrafts, about a quarter of the size this.

Softball-sized. Radio, allows us to communicate with the DSN, radio in order, to do things like navigate. On our way to Mars and in, order to communicate with the Deep Space Network and understand how our satellites, are doing now. Once Marco and. We're. All assuming it's gonna do its job beautifully, once it gets to Mars and it's gonna help out the inside spacecraft, when it's once that is done where did the Marco, cube. Sets go sure, so Marcos primary, mission, is a technology, demonstration, to learn about these technologies. If we, survive our six-month voyage, and learn all of about. These technologies, throughout that trip will, do. Entry descent and landing relay, of insights information, after, that the to Marco's missions is complete we'll. Finish, relaying. Down data and engineering, data to, sort of see exactly how we performed, when relaying insights, data for entry descent and landing and, after. That we'll sail. Off into the sunset and sort of be in a heliocentric. Orbit, for, forever. That's it's, incredible, in fact you know it's. Really you're laying the foundation, for future Cube sets to. Be launched to other planets absolutely. It's a it's a real honor and an. Exciting, time. To, be. Involved. In this investment, into, the future of small. Satellites, and satellites in general, it's. It's, a really. Surreal. Experience to. Have, worked on this over the past several years and to be here to see the launch and experience, everything that, all of these teams have put into their, satellites, together now, a little bit it's a piece of trivia for the audience I believe, correct. Me if I'm wrong that Marko a and B have special, names, absolutely. So so Marko a and B were. Given. The names by the team of Wally, and Eva after, the the Disney character, from the movie wall-e and. That actually has some basis, in in, what. Marco actually is so. The. Marco's are demonstrating. A coal gas propulsion system, which allows, us to fly, to allows. Us to correct our trajectory on our, trip to Mars, in. The movie wall-e there's a scene where where wall-e jumps, out of the space station and it's flying around with a with. A fire extinguisher. Our. Prop. Systems, are filled with the same propellant that is in common fire extinguishers. So we're in in essence our wall-e flying, through space powered, by our fire extinguisher, how cool is that it's it's really it's very cool well Joe thank you so much for joining us today we I can't wait to see Marco in action and and perform.

Admirably And, helping out the inside spacecraft, thank you Chris Steffi how about you but we got to come up with a special name for us because that's pretty cool having to cube SAS with special names back to you thank, you so much Chris now, if you love that they are named after Wally, would, get some more insight and Marco trivia for you coming up now. NASA. Edge spoke to several insight, team members at NASA's, Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Recently. To, expand upon NASA's, goal to understand, the interior, of Mars. We're. Here at Tom Hoffman Project, Manager for insight I do it Tom I'm doing great Chris you get pretty excited I'm very excited we're getting really close I can't wait to go hey tell us what is insight insight. Is a geophysical, lander, that's gonna go to Mars it's gonna land on Mars it's going to deploy some geophysical, instruments specifically. A seismometer, and a, heat flow and physical properties probe and it's gonna probe, into the interior, of Mars to understand what, the makeup is you can think of it kind of as a checkup for Mars this is a pretty cool mission because it's not like any other Mars, mission that we've had to the surface before that's, right so in the past we've only gone a few centimeters, into the surface of Mars it's basically scrape the surface in, this mission we're gonna literally hammer in five, meters about 15 feet into the regular to Mars so, that we can put down a physical properties probe what it's going to do as it goes in it's going to take measurements. Of the properties, of the regolith as a soil and, at, different intervals, and finally when it gets down to its final resting spot about that five meters 15 feet down, it's, going to be able to measure how much heat is coming out from the core to, the surface and the reason that matters is because with, a hot core we know that that's what basically keeps the whole planet. Alive, right that hot pork so understand how hot it still is and how much energy is still coming out from the core we're really giving us a good idea about how alive is Mars still today Bruce. It's absolutely, fascinating to, think of Mars as a living planet but how do you do that, scientifically. Well. A planet. Is really it's like a heat engine you, have the heat of the court is trying to get out and that's what's driving all, the geology, on the planet and so what we need to measure are both. The heat coming out which, is its energy balance, and sort. Of the motions that are going on and we measure those with, our three investigations, how, does that help you, determine. That information. About the composition, of the planet that you guys are looking at well, the different, parts of the planet have different masses so the iron, core is very dense and very heavy and so what we'd like to know is how big that core is and the, size of the core is going to determine its.

Effect On the wobble of the planet so we can measure the size of the wobble the speed of the wobble and also. The frequency because it wobbles at different frequencies, and so, all those things we can then sort of trace, back to the size and the, density, and state, of the core do, we have any indication so, far that there's either, a lot of seismic, activity or, rather enough. Seismic, activity, to get the data that you're looking for well, we have some. Information, we have images from orbit that show us faults on the surface of the planet and most, those faults are billions, of years old but we, actually can see some that are younger and by counting. Up the faults as a function of time, extrapolating. It to the present, we can come up with an estimate of the Mars activity, we also have sort of bounding cases we know that the earth is gonna be a lot more active than Mars we, know that the moon is a much deader planet, we, measured, the seismic activity on the moon during the Apollo age so we know that Mars should be more active than that and the numbers that we estimate. Do come out between those two bounds and so we, have a good expectation. That we'll see Mars quakes but of course we won't really know we get there so. Drop a a insight. Has landed. Everybody's. Looking forward to start collecting science. But, before you can start collecting sentence, you have to start deploying, your. Instruments, tell, me a little bit about that so the first thing we'll do is we document our workspace using our camera, on our arm will take about roughly. 56, images, that have to be downlink it could take a few Sol's a couple, of Sol's to download them once, those images arrive, their downlink will be processed, on the ground to, build a digital elevation map of our workspace the, scientists, and engineers are now going to work together very, closely to. Select the two places the one who plays the instruments, so. Once those sites have been selected, then we go on our merry ways to build sequences, to actually pick different strains and put them on the surface of Mars the, first one is the seismometer and then once you dump placing, the seismometer, on the ground this, seismometer is very very sensitive if the butterfly sits, on top of it and flaps its wings, it can detect it so, you, can imagine if you have wind or, any other disturbance, going over the sides one meter you're going to get noise on your signal so, we have to put over it what we call a winning thermal shield basically.

It Provides the seismometer it was a constant, thermal environment, and also, protects, it from the wind now, when you put your heat probe down once. That starts drilling. Into the surface, of Mars that. Is you're done with that right that cannot be moved yes, that is correct so while we do all the heat probe is what we go through the same process what, the scientists we select a site once. We've done with that we, take, our robotic arm which is basically a fishing pole with a hook on it you pick up the heat probe it's, gotta is gone what we call it tether or cable. Because, it's all made it to the land I guess it's power and data and computing power from the from, the lander will pick it up and as we move it the, tether is inside, the heat probe and, we pull it out and then we slowly bring it to the ground it's very light, and we have to also be precise, to place it at a position where, there will not be any obstacles. That would block what. We call the mall from, getting to the ground from digging, into the ground, the seismometer, is, on the surface of Mars the heat probe has. Dug down into the surface, what. If you find out that the. Center. Of of Mars, is solid. That it, isn't, molten, isn't, hot, what, does it tell you its houses we've got some good signs right. Because, whether. It's molten what is solid or liquid is. The. Right answer so. That means we have the right answer we have the better model for Mars so, it's a win win. At. This time we're about 52, minutes into, the flight of the insight spacecraft. And I, understand, that NASA is Chris has, found Jim, Green chief scientist again because, he's full of energy and he just can't get enough of this you. Can't. Get enough of Jim Green I got, a I could, listen to him for an all day Jim. Tell. Me I know there's a lot of fog but we heard, quite. A bit of yeah yeah yeah so I you. Know sort. Of hedge my bets and I turned, on you, know the iPhone app for sound, okay. You know just like a size instrument. You. Know Mars, quakes, I was, looking for Atlas, quakes and we, heard it we really, heard it car, alarms, went off in the parking, lot that's right. Believe. That I heard at least two or three car alarms going on it. Was mine but I didn't care now, we know, we talked earlier but it

2018-05-08 21:04

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