Mission to Mars a big success

Spacecraft set to run seismic experiments on Earth’s neighbour

Nasa’s spacecraft, designed to sense quakes and tremors, touched down on the Red Planet.

Pasadena: Cheers and applause erupted at Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory as a waist- high unmanned lander, called InSight, touched down on Mars, capping a nearly seven-year journey from design to launch to landing.

The dramatic arrival of the US$993mil (RM4.16bil) spacecraft – designed to listen for quakes and tremors as a way to unveil the Red Planet’s inner mysteries, how it formed billions of years ago and, by extension, how other rocky planets like Earth took shape – marked the eighth successful landing on Mars in Nasa’s history.

“Touchdown confirmed,” a mission control operator at Nasa said, as pent-up anxiety and excitement surged through the room, and dozens of scientists leapt from their seats to embrace each other.

“It was intense and you could feel the emotion,” said Nasa administrator Jim Bridenstine, in an interview on Nasa television on Monday.

Bridenstine also said President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence watched on television and called to congratulate the US space agency for its hard work.

“Ultimately, the day is coming when we land humans on Mars,” Bridenstine said, adding that the goal is to do so by the mid 2030s.

The vehicle appeared to be in good shape, according to the first communications received from the Martian surface.

But as expected, the dust kicked up during the landing obscured the first picture InSight sent back, which was heavily flecked.

France’s Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales made the Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure instrument, the key element for sensing quakes.

The principal investigator on the French seismometer, Philippe Lognonne, said he was “relieved and very happy” at the outcome.

“I’ve just received confirmation that there are no rocks in front of the lander,” he said. Next, InSight must open its solar arrays, as Nasa waits until later in the afternoon to learn if that final, crucial phase went as planned.

The spacecraft is meant to be solar-powered once it reaches the surface of Mars. —

AP Project pioneers: Nasa official Andrew Klesh (right), speaking next to his colleagues, project manager Tom Hoffman (left) and lead scientist Bruce Banerdt, under a photograph taken by one of the mini satellites that trailed the InSight lander, at Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. —