On November 26, 2018, NASA’s InSight probe touched down on the western side of a flat, smooth expanse of lava called Elysium Planitia. Now the mission team has determined that the lander sits slightly tilted in a sand-filled impact crater.
InSight flipped open the lens cover on its Instrument Context Camera (ICC) on November 30, 2018, and captured this view of Mars. Located below the deck of the InSight lander, the ICC has a fisheye view, creating a curved horizon. Some clumps of dust are still visible on the camera’s lens. One of the spacecraft’s footpads can be seen in the lower right corner. The seismometer’s tether box is in the upper left corner. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech.
“The science team had been hoping to land in a sandy area with few rocks since we chose the landing site, so we couldn’t be happier,” said InSight project manager Dr. Tom Hoffman, of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
“There are no landing pads or runways on Mars, so coming down in an area that is basically a large sandbox without any large rocks should make instrument deployment easier and provide a great place for our mole to start burrowing.”
Rocks and slopes could affect InSight’s ability to place its heat-flow probe — also known as ‘the mole,’ or HP3 (Heat Flow and Physical Properties Package) — and ultra-sensitive seismometer, known as SEIS, on the surface of Mars.
Touching down on an overly steep slope in the wrong direction could also have jeopardized the spacecraft’s ability to get adequate power output from its two solar arrays, while landing beside a large rock could have prevented InSight from being able to open one of those arrays. In fact, both arrays fully deployed shortly after landing.
The InSight team’s preliminary assessment of the photographs taken so far of the landing area suggests the area in the immediate vicinity of the lander is populated by only a few rocks.
“We are looking forward to higher-definition pictures to confirm this preliminary assessment,” said InSight principal investigator Dr. Bruce Banerdt, of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
“If these few images — with resolution-reducing dust covers on — are accurate, it bodes well for both instrument deployment and the mole penetration of our subsurface heat-flow experiment.”
Once sites on the Martian surface have been carefully selected for the two main instruments, the researchers will unstow and begin initial testing of the mechanical arm that will place them there.
Data downlinked from the lander also indicate that during its first full day on Mars, the solar-powered InSight spacecraft generated more electrical power than any previous vehicle on the surface of Mars.
“It is great to get our first ‘off-world record’ on our very first full day on Mars,” Dr. Hoffman said.
“But even better than the achievement of generating more electricity than any mission before us is what it represents for performing our upcoming engineering tasks.”
“The 4,588 watt-hours we produced during Sol 1 means we currently have more than enough juice to perform these tasks and move forward with our science mission.”
