This is KPBS midday edition. I'm Jade Hindman. It took more than half the year to travel millions of miles through the solar system but the inside finally broke through the atmosphere of Mars and made a safe landing. The mission is to collect data Emily Mann or Chapman is a systems engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. She worked on the Mars inside and joins me via Skype. Emily thanks for joining us. Hi. Good morning. The insight landed yesterday afternoon what was its journey like and why is it such a big deal. Well as you mentioned we had a six and a half month journey to Mars. We launch May 5th of this year from the Vandenberg Air Force Base. We were the first planetary mission ever leave from the west coast from California. So that was a very exciting moment in May. And then we had a really great journey to Mars. We you know checked out the spacecraft and our scientific instruments on the way and everything was working really well. And then yesterday was the big day the landing on Mars. I think the part we were all looking forward to. And also very nervous about because landing on Mars is always risky but it was beautiful it was so perfect and just amazing that we're on Mars. Yeah that's exciting. I mean can you explain the process involved in landing that insight. So it's kind of a three step process in say travel to Mars. Inside what we call an arrow shell and the bottom of that shell was a heat shield. The first thing we did was we pointed that heat shield into the atmosphere of Mars and we hit the top of the atmosphere of Mars going over 12000 miles per hour. And so that generate a lot of heat a lot of energy and that heat shield is there to dissipate that energy and slow us down. Once we're done the heat shield. Next we used a supersonic parachute and so that deployed at the top of the aeroshell column that we were in. And so we able to use Mars's atmosphere it helped slow us down. Unfortunately Mars's atmosphere since it's only about 1 percent as thick as Earth can't slow us all the way down with the parachute. Our final step was to use retro rockets on the bottom to the lander those fired. And finally slowed the lander down to five miles per hour and gently set us on the surface. So that was six and a half minutes from over 12000 mph down to five miles per hour yesterday really wild six and a half minutes. I mean so it's a lot more involved than just putting it in park. So you were at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena. What was the atmosphere like there once the insight landed. I was so excited. I was in our operations room with a number of my teammates and a lot of jumping up and down screaming hugs laughing. We were just so ecstatic. And then to hear that we were on the ground. And then just a few minutes later to get that first image from Mars that we got yesterday that was just I think kind of like the cherry on top of the ice cream you know getting that image and seeing we're on Mars it was so exciting right. So what so ultimately what's the insights mission so say is the first mission to Mars to focus on the interior of the planet. Our previous missions have focused on exploring the surface and the atmosphere the insect wants to learn what's going on deep underneath the surface and it wants to understand what we call terrestrial planets Mars and Earth are both terrestrial planets. We know they each have a core mantle and across those three layers and we want to learn about what our Mars is what are those layers made of on Mars how thick are each of those layers. So we carry several enormous can help us do that. We'll be looking for seismic activity on Mars so we're looking for Mars quakes will also have a self hammering probe that will hammer down. Up to 16 feet underneath the surface of Mars the deepest we've ever gone underneath the surface of Mars and it will take the temperature of mars and tell us about how heat moves around the planet over time and then using radio signals we're going to measure how Mars wobbles on its axis Mars spins and an axis just like Earth does and we want to measure how also wobbles over time on that access and that will tell us if the center of Mars the core is liquid or solid and so using those three science investigations together we'll be able to learn how Mars formed involved and we can apply what we learn at Mars to other terrestrial planets like Earth as well. Wow. So now as the insight is drilling into the surface is it drilling into dirt. Clay Sandrock I mean what is it. What is what is that our landing spot was Elisia replenish a clinician means planes so we land it we picked a very flat area on Mars to land one because it was the safest for landing the lander there. We want to avoid rocks but also it was a good place in terms of what we understood from our orbiting spacecraft at Mars of the soil and rock that are there. So it's not hard rock it's soil Sandy but we're going to be taking a lot of pictures of the area around the lander in the next few weeks to determine you know what's the best place to find the lander to put our seismometer in or heat probe onto the surface of Mars and we'll pick what looks to be the best area for those two instruments. Yeah and you worked on tools that will measure weather on the red planet too. What types of weather patterns do you expect to see and could that information be an indication of something else. So are weather sensors can measure air temperature wind speed atmospheric pressure and also the magnetic field and they're part of our lander because they will help supply corroborating evidence for a seismometer are some seismometers very very sensitive. It will be able to pick up seismic activity on the opposite side of Mars from where Incyte landed so you can imagine it's very windy on Mars and kind of shakes or seismometer it might look like we had a quake event but really it wasn't so. Environmental sensors will be really important for providing us that kind of context data but also it's going to tell us more about Mars. Know we landed in a new spot. We've not sent a mission to before and Olesen Clinica and so to help us characterize another spot on Mars and add to that global understanding of Mars as weather patterns. And earlier you mentioned Mars quakes how are they different from earthquakes. One way they're different is here on Earth our earthquakes are caused by plate tectonics on Mars doesn't have plate tectonics so that type of seismic activity we'll see there is from you know magma possibly moving around inside the planet as the planet radiates heat out into space and it kind of cools that cracking in the crust will pick that up. And also a meteorite impacts we think we'll be able to pick up with our seismometer as well. But that lack of Plate Tectonics is actually why Mars is a good planet to study to understand terrestrial planet formation because it didn't go through all that constant resurfacing like Earth did throughout its history. So Mars is kind of like a time machine that we were looking back into the early history of terrestrial planet formation by looking at Mars and will the insight starts sending data back right away not right away. So we will get circuiting some data this week as we start to turn on our instruments and do check out make sure there's healthy and functioning well. But as I mentioned we want to put our seismometer in or heat probe onto the surface of Mars. So for about the next three months that's our focus of starting to look in the next few weeks what's the area around the lander Lake where can we set the instruments and then starting to use the robotic arm that we have onboard the lander to pick up our seismometer and our heat probe and put them onto the surface of Mars. And that was going to take about three months but we will still get some data in that in those three months. But really once they're on the ground we'll really start what we call our science monitoring phase and start sending back lots of science data. Fascinating stuff. I've been speaking with Emily Mann or Chapman who is a systems engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Emily thank you so much for your insight. Thank you for having me.
A NASA spacecraft designed to drill down into Mars' interior landed on the planet Monday after a perilous, supersonic plunge through its red skies, setting off jubilation among scientists who had waited in white-knuckle suspense for confirmation to arrive across 100 million miles of space.
Flight controllers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, leaped out of their chairs, screaming, dancing and hugging, upon learning that InSight had arrived on Mars, the graveyard for a multitude of previous missions.
"Touchdown confirmed!" a flight controller called out just before 3 p.m. EST, instantly dispelling the anxiety that had gripped the control room as the spacecraft made its six-minute descent.
Because of the distance between Earth and Mars, it took eight minutes for confirmation to arrive, relayed by a pair of tiny satellites that had been trailing InSight throughout the six-month, 300-million-mile (482-million-kilometer) journey.
The two satellites not only transmitted the good news in almost real time, they also sent back InSight's first snapshot of Mars just 4½ minutes after landing.
The picture was speckled with dirt because the dust cover was still on the lander's camera, but the terrain around the spacecraft looked smooth and sandy with just one sizable rock visible — pretty much what scientists had hoped for. Better photos are expected in the days ahead, after the dust covers come off.
It was NASA's — indeed, humanity's — eighth successful landing at Mars since the 1976 Viking probes, and the first in six years. NASA's Curiosity rover, which arrived in 2012, is still on the move on Mars.
"Flawless," declared JPL's chief engineer, Rob Manning. "This is what we really hoped and imagined in our mind's eye," he added. "Sometimes things work out in your favor."
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NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine, presiding over his first Mars landing as the space agency's boss, said: "What an amazing day for our country."
InSight, a $1 billion international project, includes a German mechanical mole that will burrow down 16 feet (5 meters) to measure Mars' internal heat. The lander also has a French seismometer for measuring quakes, if they exist on our smaller, geologically calmer neighbor. Another experiment will calculate Mars' wobble to reveal the makeup of the planet's core.
"In the coming months and years even, history books will be rewritten about the interior of Mars," said JPL's director, Michael Watkins.
Seven hours after touchdown, NASA reported that InSight's vital solar panels were open and recharging its batteries.
Over the next few "sols" — or Martian days of 24 hours, 39½ minutes — flight controllers will also assess the health of InSight's all-important robot arm and its science instruments.
Many Mars-bound spacecraft launched by the U.S., Russia and other countries have been lost or destroyed over the years, with a success rate of just 40 percent, not counting InSight.
NASA went with its old, straightforward approach this time, using a parachute and braking engines to get InSight's speed from 12,300 mph (19,800 kph) when it pierced the Martian atmosphere, about 77 miles (114 kilometers) up, to 5 mph (8kph) at touchdown. The danger was that the spacecraft could burn up in the atmosphere or bounce off it.
The three-legged InSight settled on the western side of Elysium Planitia, the plain that NASA was aiming for. Project manager Tom Hoffman said the spacecraft landed close to the bull's-eye, but NASA did not have yet have the final calculations.
He said that it was hard to tell from the first photo whether there were any slopes nearby, but that it appeared he got the flat, smooth "parking lot" he was hoping for.
Museums, planetariums and libraries across the U.S. held viewing parties to watch the events unfold at JPL. NASA TV coverage was also shown on the giant screen in New York's Times Square, where crowds huddled under umbrellas in the rain.
The 800-pound (360-kilogram) InSight is stationary and will operate from the same spot for the next two years, the duration of a Martian year. It will take months to set up and fine-tune the instruments, and lead scientist Bruce Banerdt said he doesn't expect to start getting a stream of solid data until late next spring.
"It's going to be awesome. I can't wait to start seeing marsquakes," Hoffman said.
Mars' well-preserved interior provides a snapshot of what Earth may have looked like following its formation 4.5 billion years ago, according to Banerdt. While Earth is active seismically, Mars "decided to rest on its laurels" after it formed, he said.
By examining and mapping the interior of Mars, scientists hope to learn why the rocky planets in our solar system turned out so different and why Earth became a haven for life.
Still, there are no life detectors aboard InSight. NASA's next mission, the Mars 2020 rover, will prowl for rocks that might contain evidence of ancient life.
The question of whether life ever existed in Mars' wet, watery past is what keeps driving NASA back to the fourth rock from the sun.
