InSight Landing on mars happens soon.

Cowboy_Ken

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The InSight has successfully landed. Next will be the deployment of the rover. We will be getting so much new information from this. My earlobes tingle with anticipation.
 

Cowboy_Ken

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We’ve already gotten our first photo. It’ll take some crunching on my side, but I’ll try to post it. Meanwhile, here is Time magazines epost.

Here Is the First Picture from NASA's Mars InSight Lander
Here Is the First Picture from NASA's Mars InSight Lander
Jeffrey Kluger
It isn’t pretty—nothing at all like the gallery of pictures that are sure to come. But just moments after landing—plus the eight minutes and seven seconds it takes for a radio signal to travel from Mars to Earth—the InSight spacecraft beamed home its first image from the Martian surface. InSight’s own Twitter feed explained the poor quality of the image: “My lens cover isn’t off yet, but I had to show you a first look at my new home.”
The dark flecks in the image that resemble nothing so much as bacteria on a microscope slide are dust and debris kicked up by the lander’s engines, clinging to the semi-transparent cover. A bit of the spacecraft itself—likely one of its three foot-pads—is visible at the center bottom. InSight is equipped with two cameras: the one that produced this picture is on the main body of the spacecraft and captures fish-eye images, which maximizes the field of vision for close-up work. The other, mounted on the robotic arm, is the one that will provide full-color panoramic imagery with a field of view of about 45 degrees.
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What counts most at the moment though is that InSight is precisely where it’s supposed to be—on Mars’s Elysium plain, just north of the equator; and that it’s there precisely when it was supposed to be—205 days after its May 5 launch. The spacecraft covered 270 million miles from the coast of Florida to get where it was going and operated flawlessly throughout. America isn’t good at everything; but we’re very, very good at Mars—and that is, and very much ought to be, a source of national uplift.
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Cowboy_Ken

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Cool stuff ... it gets all of my nerdery going!

Jamie

Mine as well. My uncle was a flight control analyst at JPL. He worked on slingshot controls to speed satellites up while saving on the carrying of extra fuel. He had given my grandmother a photo of earth rise on Mars.
 

Tim Carlisle

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I’ve already been told there will be nothing there because the Bible doesn’t mention it.
Wait, what? The Bible doesn’t mention microwave ovens yet this logic doesn’t go in that direction yet.
According to the flat-earthers, we've never developed the technology to launch anything beyond the Van Allen Belt. And the earth is shaped kinda like a birdbath. Lol
 

Markw84

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I’ll head to Mars on the next flight that requires a tortoise habitat tender. The soviets, sometime in the 60’s launched a russian tortoise to check on body health after launching.

That was actually the first animal in space. The tortoise has that distinction!
 

Cowboy_Ken

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My favorite question asked at the first astronaut lose is, “What do you see?” No one ever calmly responds, “Lots of stars.” “What is your location?” “Ummm, space, ya know?”
 

LaLaP

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I’ll head to Mars on the next flight that requires a tortoise habitat tender. The soviets, sometime in the 60’s launched a russian tortoise to check on body health after launching.
Wow! I didn't know about the Russian tortoises in space but I just looked it up. So cool! Glad you shared that :)
 

LaLaP

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Two tortoises and a variety of insects were the first inhabitants of Earth to circle the Moon, on the 1968 Zond 5 mission.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zond_5
I was something like 7 years old at the time and I’m gonna use this as the reason for me getting into tortoises. LOL
It certainly will help support my argument that tortoises are the coolest animals. Torts in spaaaaace! I'm re-imagining the muppets pigs in space... but better!
 

Cowboy_Ken

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Zond 5, a member of the Soviet Zond program, was an unmanned spacecraft that in September 1968 became the second ship to travel to and circle the Moon, and the first to return safely to Earth. Although unmanned, Zond 5 carried the first Earthlings to reach the Moon, including two tortoises, mealworms, wine flies, plants, and other lifeforms, and was also the first to return Moon travelers safely to Earth.

Zond 5
IMG_4021.jpg
Zond 5
Names
Soyuz 7K-L1 s/n 9
Mission type
Lunar flyby
Spacecraft test
Operator
OKB-1
COSPAR ID
1968-076A
SATCAT no.
03394Edit this on Wikidata
Mission duration
6.7 days
Spacecraft properties
Bus
Soyuz 7K-L1
Manufacturer
OKB-1
Launch mass
5,375 kilograms (11,850 lb)
Start of mission
Launch date
14 September 1968, 21:42 UTC
Rocket
Proton-K/D
Launch site
Baikonur 81/23
End of mission
Recovered by
Soviet vessels Borovichy and Vasiliy Golovin
Landing date
September 21, 1968
Landing site
32°38′S 65°33′E
Indian Ocean
Orbital parameters
Reference system
Geocentric
Regime
Low Earth
Semi-major axis
6,613 kilometres (4,109 mi)
Eccentricity
0.00604
Perigee
202 kilometres (126 mi)
Apogee
282 kilometres (175 mi)
Inclination
51.83°
Period
89.29 minutes
Epoch
13 September 1968
Flyby of Moon
Closest approach
September 18, 1968
Distance
1,950 km (1,210 mi)
 
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