Closing summary
Well that all went smoothly. InSight touched down on Mars at 2.52:59pm ET, a successful landing after an almost seven-month journey through deep space.
The probe immediately went to work, aiming to activate its solar panels before beginning the weeks-long process of setting instruments in place.
Once InSight’s robotic arm has set out its equipment, including a seismometer which will monitor for marsquakes, it will drill 5m down into Mars’s crust, to assess the planet’s temperature. InSight will then begin to send data to Nasa.
The mission is set to last for two Earth years – which is a little over one Mars year. The information it gathers should help scientists to better understand how Earth and other planets in the solar system were formed at the dawn of the solar system – 4.6bn years ago.
Updated
Over at Space.com writer Lee Cavendish has some good background information on what the InSight mission is aiming to achieve:
About 4.5 billion years ago, the eight planets of our solar system were formed. All eight planets were formed from a clumpy disk of rock, ice and debris orbiting the young sun.
Fast-forward to the present and we now see a distinct difference between the inner and outer planets. The terrestrial planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars) all have a dense, rocky structure, with only one able to support life.
The Jovian planets (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune) are all primarily gas and swollen up to enormous sizes. The question that astronomers still can’t answer, though, is how did these terrestrial planets form and evolve?
By drilling beneath Mars’s surface, Cavendish writes: “The heat flow within Mars could be compared to Earth’s and reveal that both were formed from the same substances, and if they aren’t, then why not.”
Nasa helped organize viewing parties for the InSight landing around the US and Europe. One was in Times Square, where the live stream from Nasa control was broadcast on one of the big advertising boards:
Did you watch @NASAInSight’s #MarsLanding? The live Mars mission was broadcast live today on the @Nasdaq tower in #TimesSquare with @NASA team members in attendance! Congratulations @NASAJPL/@NASA on a successful landing. pic.twitter.com/AbVOnpobnL
— Times Square (@TimesSquareNYC) November 26, 2018
The official time of InSight’s landing was 2.52:59 pm ET, according to Nasa. The people behind the landing are very pleased.
“We hit the Martian atmosphere at 12,300 mph (19,800 kilometers per hour), and the whole sequence to touching down on the surface took only six-and-a-half minutes,” said Tom Hoffman, InSight project manager at Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
“During that short span of time, InSight had to autonomously perform dozens of operations and do them flawlessly — and by all indications that is exactly what our spacecraft did.”
The next milestone for the space agency is confirmation that InSight’s solar panels have deployed. Then it can get to work.
“We are solar powered, so getting the arrays out and operating is a big deal,” Hoffman said. “With the arrays providing the energy we need to start the cool science operations, we are well on our way to thoroughly investigate what’s inside of Mars for the very first time.”
Here’s a video from Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California as InSight lands safely:
The Guardian’s science editor has filed a news story on InSight’s successful landing, and on what Nasa hopes the probe will achieve.
The $814m (£633m) lander will draw on a suite of instruments to study the makeup and dimensions of the planet’s core, mantle and crust. Armed with that data, scientists hope to learn how Mars - and other rocky worlds - formed at the dawn of the solar system 4.6bn years ago.
Earth’s rotating molten iron core generates the magnetic field that shields life from harmful radiation, and helps prevent the atmosphere from being stripped away by high energy particles in the solar wind. At some point in its history, Mars lost its magnetic field, and much of its atmosphere, causing temperatures to drop and exposing the surface to intense radiation. InSight may help explain why, said [Rain] Irshad, [the autonomous systems group leader at RAL Space in Oxfordshire, and one of several UK scientists who worked on InSight’s instruments.]
“Are there conditions under the surface that might have meant life went down there in order to survive?” she said. “If it retreated beneath the surface, future missions might find it there.”
More from Pence:
Congratulations to @NASA, @LockheedMartin, @ulalaunch, & all who made today's @NASAInSight #MarsLanding possible! This marks the 8th time the US has landed on Mars & the 1st mission to study its deep interior. Incredible milestone! https://t.co/plgJch3Vpc
— Vice President Mike Pence (@VP) November 26, 2018
The view from Mars:
📸 Wish you were here! @NASAInSight sent home its first photo after #MarsLanding:
— NASA (@NASA) November 26, 2018
InSight’s view is a flat, smooth expanse called Elysium Planitia, but its workspace is below the surface, where it will study Mars’ deep interior. pic.twitter.com/3EU70jXQJw
No rest for the wicked
InSight was due to begin its “surface operations” one minute after touchdown, according to Nasa.
The probe will begin by assessing its landing site, sending back images of the ground and the area within reach of its robotic arm.
Once Nasa has a good idea of InSight’s surroundings, the craft will begin placing scientific instruments over the ground, which could take up to three months.
It will take another seven weeks for InSight to sink its probe into the Martian ground – down to a depth of five meters (16ft) – then the craft will sit quietly in place, collecting data and beaming it back to Earth.
Mike Pence 'absolutely ecstatic' over successful landing
Mike Pence has called Nasa to say he is “absolutely ecstatic” at the InSight landing.
Nasa administrator Jim Bridenstine said the vice-president called him moments after landing to pass on congratulations.
“To have him call within seconds of mission success is incredible,” Bridenstine said.
Pence has become the Trump administration’s go-to person on space-related topics, touring a number of Nasa facilities over the past two years.
Updated
The space probe has declared itself to be “home”:
I feel you, #Mars – and soon I’ll know your heart. With this safe landing, I’m here. I’m home.
— NASAInSight (@NASAInSight) November 26, 2018
#MarsLanding https://t.co/auhFdfiUMg
Nasa said it could receive an image from InSight almost immediately, or there could be a few hours wait.
Good news for the scientists: InSight has already beamed back a photo. It’s taken through a dustcover, which will be removed, but shows what Nasa says is some debris on the surface of Mars.
Updated
InSight has touched down on Mars!
A tense wait in the Nasa control room as the person in charge provides updates on InSight’s descent.
“Altitude 600m, 400m, 300m, 200m, 80m, 60m, 50m, 37m, 30m, 20m, 17m,” she says. A moment later: touchdown.
High fives, fist bumps and hugs in the control room.
Updated
Parachute deployed
InSight has deployed its parachute – which is 12m in diameter – which should slow the craft right down as it descends. Applause in the Nasa control center.
“This is really good news so far,” according to the Nasa scientist on the agency’s live coverage.
Atmospheric entry
InSight has entered the Martian atmosphere at 2.47pm, according to Nasa. The spacecraft will turn its heatshield towards the planet, which will protect it from temperatures of up to 3,000F.
Updated
Nasa scientists describe the entry, descent and landing phase of its Mars missions the “seven minutes of terror”, writes the Guardian’s science editor Ian Sample.
InSight will be battering into Mars’s thin atmosphere at 12,300mph before using a parachute and 12 thrusters to (hopefully) land safely at Elysium Planitia.
On Nasa’s live coverage of the landing a scientist has just said her worst nightmare is if InSight lands on a rock. There’s nothing the space agency could do about that, she said.
Another Nasa expert just described the complexities of landing InSight as like firing a basketball from Los Angeles and hitting “nothing but net” at the Empire State building in New York City. As anyone who has ever tried it will know, that is a very difficult shot to make.
Updated
In less than 20 minutes InSight will be separating from the craft that has carried it on the 301,223,981 mile journey to Mars. NASA has a detailed itinerary of InSight’s landing procedure.
It should be down by 2.54pm ET, and NASA is expecting confirmation that all is well at 3.01pm. Here’s the timeline:
- 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
Updated
InSight is aiming to land at a site called Elysium Planitia, a flat plain on Mars’s equator. Planitia is the Latin for flat surface, it says here, while Elysium is ancient Greek for an afterlife paradise.
The designated landing site is about 370 miles from where Curiosity, a car-sized vehicle, touched down in August 2012.
That mission was planned to last for two years, but was extended and Curiosity is still roaming around to this day.
The inanimate vehicle has, for better or worse, got a first-person Twitter feed, and yesterday Curiosity tweeted that it was looking forward to InSight’s arrival. (Sol is a pun – it’s the term used for a Mars-day.)
Nov 26, 2011 🚀 I launched
— Curiosity Rover (@MarsCuriosity) November 25, 2018
Nov 26, 2018 🔴 InSight lands
I couldn't ask for a better sol mate, @NASAInSight! Looking forward to your #MarsLanding and all the discovery yet to come. https://t.co/yMT4pfgvWO pic.twitter.com/ixANAEqQMp
Updated
Here’s a natty little explainer on what InSight will be getting up to on Mars. It’ll be a combination of prodding, probing, and recording.
Updated
Hello and welcome to live coverage of the Nasa Mars landing.
We’re expecting InSight, a spacecraft designed to collect information on the makeup of Mars, to land at about 3pm US ET (8pm GMT).
InSight has been traveling through deep space for more than six months. If and when it arrives on Mars it will drill down into the surface of the planet, to measure the internal temperature. It is also carrying a seismometer to monitor marsquakes (like earthquakes, but on Mars), as Nasa attempts to answer “fundamental questions about the formation of Earth-like planets”.
It’s far from a given that InSight will land safely. Only 40% of missions sent to Mars have succeeded. Of 45 missions, Nasa considers 18 to have been a complete success.
InSight is expected to touch down at 2.54pm ET, but we won’t know until seven minutes later – given the time it takes for messages to transmit from Mars to Earth – if the landing was successful.
Nasa has live video coverage of the landing, and we’ll bring you up to the minute news of InSight’s progress.
Updated
