
How to Land on Mars - digital55
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/11/25/science/insight-how-to-land-on-mars.html
======
Yhippa
This reminds me of when Curiosity landed years ago. It was a really cool event
and I remember watching it on my Xbox. I think there was a special app to use
to watch the event at NASA live. It was one of the tensest things I'd ever
seen. I hope kids of all ages over the world get to experience something like
this if you're interested in science.

~~~
bhrgunatha
I vividly remember a sense of total awe watching it, thinking here we are,
watching a broadcast from inside the JPL - as it happens! - of a craft in a
totally new, complex method of landing after travelling and being guided
millions of kilometres.

What struck me in particular was the sense of wonder at being able to see that
first image of the wheel - transmitted across the globe live as they received
it.

Such a privilege and accomplishment.

------
noselasd
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGD_YF64Nwk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGD_YF64Nwk)
\- live coverage of InSight landing on the NASA JPL channel, started November
26, 2018 at 19:00 UTC, touchdown at around 20:00 UTC

~~~
georgeecollins
When I was a kid I remember watching on PBS as they covered pictures of
Jupiter getting transmitted from Voyager 1 as it flew by. It was really
exciting. The pictures didn't come that quickly but it felt really exciting to
watch a TV program with the scientists from NASA.

------
dr_orpheus
Successful touchdown confirmed!

------
yaj54
Final approach:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGD_YF64Nwk&t=54m10s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGD_YF64Nwk&t=54m10s)

------
te0006
So smooth, hardly noticed we were landing... I guess 95% of the HN population
came along for the ride: [https://mars.nasa.gov/participate/send-your-
name/insight/](https://mars.nasa.gov/participate/send-your-name/insight/)

------
radium3d
I wanted to know a little more detail about why the broad equatorial plain
Elysium Planitia was chosen as the landing place. Found this article but just
curious if there is any more detail about the location or selection process?

\--

Elysium Planitia, a flat-smooth plain just north of the equator makes for the
perfect location from which to study the deep Martian interior.

Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport,
or InSight, is designed to study the deep interior of Mars. The mission seeks
the fingerprints of the processes that formed the rocky planets of the solar
system.

Its landing site, Elysium Planitia, was picked from 22 candidates, and is
centered at about 4.5 degrees north latitude and 135.9 degrees east longitude;
about 373 miles (600 kilometers) from Curiosity’s landing site, Gale Crater.
The locations of other Mars landers and rovers are labeled.

InSight's scientific success and safe landing depends on landing in a
relatively flat area, with an elevation low enough to have sufficient
atmosphere above the site for a safe landing. It also depends on landing in an
area where rocks are few in number. Elysium Planitia has just the right
surface for the instruments to be able to probe the deep interior, and its
proximity to the equator ensures that the solar-powered lander is exposed to
plenty of sunlight.

\--

[https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/jpl/pia22232/insight-s-
la...](https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/jpl/pia22232/insight-s-landing-site-
elysium-planitia)

~~~
dandelany
Here’s the paper they published about landing site selection (7.5MB PDF):
[https://spiral.imperial.ac.uk:8443/bitstream/10044/1/48751/2...](https://spiral.imperial.ac.uk:8443/bitstream/10044/1/48751/2/SPAC321_Author.pdf)

Table 3 on page 20 of the PDF is a good summary; their main constraints were
latitude, elevation, slope (flatness) and rock abundance.

------
feniv
Interesting link at the end of the article about a mini helicopter NASA's
sending along with the Mars 2020 mission -
[https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/11/science/mars-
helicopter-n...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/11/science/mars-helicopter-
nasa.html)

------
bynkman
In July 1997, I was temporarily unemployed and in the unemployed doldrums. I
remember watching the day by day updates on Mars Pathfinder. Matt Golombek was
the Pathfinder lead and face on TV (CSPAN?). He's a bit presuming but he
quickly became my geek hero. Good to see that he's a lead on InSight, twenty
years later.

------
misiti3780
I have not been following space exploration in depth so forgive my ignorance
on the subject:

1\. How long did the trip take ?

2\. How many times have "we" (the world) tried and failed?

3\. How many times have "we" successfully landed ?

4\. Is this "ship" able to return to earth.

Thanks!

~~~
vkou
1\. Six months.

2\. This is the fifth success, out of thirteen attempts, over sixty years.

3\. There have been five successful landings.

4\. No.

~~~
wolf550e
There have been more successful landings on Mars:

Viking 1

Viking 2

Mars Pathfinder

Spirit

Opportunity

Phoenix

Curiosity

InSight

~~~
foobarbecue
And all of the above are JPL projects! The only thing you left off the list is
the USSR's Mars landers:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_program](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_program)
(Proud JPLer here, although I haven't worked on any Mars stuff.)

~~~
starbeast
Do you still do any occult ceremonies before launching stuff?

~~~
Twisol
Peanuts. (Wait, that's for EDL, not for launch.)

------
dsfyu404ed
After Curiosity's "helicopter drop but on Mars" style landing normal landings
like this seem boring by comparison. I can't believe that was 6yr ago.

~~~
mrfusion
I wonder why the helicopter drop was necessary then but not now?

~~~
Simulacra
The sky crane maneuver (as JPL called it) was necessary because if they
descended propulsively to the surface, it could kick up a huge dust cloud.
That dust could land on the rover and damage the instruments. See this awesome
video:
[https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/video/details.php?id=1090](https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/video/details.php?id=1090)

~~~
spullara
I was standing next to one of the engineers who wrote the software for the
landing while we were watching on the big screen at Twitter. A few moments
after it landed he announced that his code worked and was being deleted to
make room for surface operations code.

~~~
dylan604
That's one of those cool things that never gets thought about outside the
people directly involved. "Why keep the code required for landing readily
available permanently, since it'll never ever need it again." That's one of
the aspects that I enjoy about programming Arduino devices. I'm so spoiled to
essentially unlimited memory on desktop/laptops (in comparison) that writing
code to fit into extremely limited finite amounts of memory becomes
challenging in a fun way.

------
lurcio
Extraordinary claims...

~~~
starbeast
Surfaces visited by Humankind (or by robotic ambassadors) 2018 -
[https://imgur.com/a/v9Pc5Qz](https://imgur.com/a/v9Pc5Qz)

~~~
dylan604
This is a pretty interesting poster. It shows just how similar the surface of
these alien worlds look. The image of Earth is the obvious "one of these
things is not like the others".

~~~
starbeast
Venus, Mars and Titan look a bit more hospitable than the rest. The Mars one
looks like somewhere you could actually encounter on Earth.

