I was nervous, obviously, but I was pretty hopeful that everything would go well. We're all just watching, and listening, and hoping. Narrator: Bruce Banerdt is the lead scientist on the mission.īruce Banerdt: I was in the back row of the, quote, control room. InSight Mission Controller: Once the radar locks on the ground, and InSight is about 1 kilometer above the surface, the lander will separate from the backshell and begin terminal descent using its 12 descent engines. Not that that's the most important factor, but it adds a little extra element of anxiety. You don't want to have to play out that tragedy in front of the camera, if you can help it.
Seen many disasters in my day, and did not want to see one more unfold in front of me. Narrator: Sue Smrekar, deputy project scientist for InSight, was also in mission control that day, hoping this mission would succeed where others had failed. Once InSight slows to about 400 meters per second, it will deploy its 12-meter diameter supersonic parachute. InSight Mission Controller: InSight is now traveling at 1,000 meters per second. Narrator: As InSight barreled down through the planet’s atmosphere, it had to perform every aspect of the landing maneuvers perfectly, in order to arrive safely on the Martian surface. Portions of the heat shield may reach nearly 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit as it protects the lander from the heating environment. InSight Mission Controller: InSight should now be experiencing the peak heating rate.
I wanted to actually have scenes of kittens put up on their monitors to keep everybody calm, but that was voted down. So whatever happened on Mars had already happened.
One-way light-time at that point was eight minutes. Because the reality is, our planned time for entry, descent, and landing was a little over six minutes. Mission control is a complete misnomer in that particular situation. And it was a little bit nerve-wracking because they're all looking at me for what's going on, and I don't know any better than what the call is in the room at any given time. All the management from both JPL and NASA were sitting back there with me. Being the project manager, I was sitting in the back.
Tom Hoffman: On landing day for InSight, I was in the Mission Control Center here at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Tom Hoffman is the project manager for the mission. Narrator: On November 26, 2018, the Insight mission arrived at Mars after a 6-month journey of over 300 million miles. InSight Mission Controller: Atmospheric entry on my mark: three, two, one, mark.
0 kommentar(er)
