First Self from InSight Martian Landing Ground

First Self from InSight Martian Landing Ground

This is the first full-fledged selfie from NASA's Mars InSight landing site. Scientific instruments and weather sensor antennas are visible on the upper part. Image taken on December 6, 2018 and consists of 11 frames.

New Martian resident is not shy about the camera. The InSight spacecraft used a camera on its own robotic arm to get the first selfie of 11 combined images. In the photo you can see the solar panel of the ship and the entire deck, including scientific instruments.

The team members also received the first full review of the working space - an area of ​​4 x 2 meters in front of the ship. In the coming weeks, engineers and scientists will undergo a painstaking process of deciding where to install the instruments in the workspace. The robotic arm will then receive a command to place a seismometer (SEIS) and a heat flow sensor (HP3). They function best on a flat surface, so engineers look for places without stones above 1.3 cm. The InSight team deliberately chose the Elysian Highlands for landing on Mars, because it is relatively cleared of stones. The selected location was even better than thought. The ship is located in a safe “hollow” created by a meteoric strike, where the territory was later filled with sand. This will facilitate the work of the heat flow sensor, which should go 5 m below the surface.

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