A robot arm aboard NASA’s InSight Mars lander has completed deployment of a sensitive French-built seismometer and its critical wind and thermal shield.
NASA’s InSight Mars lander has snapped its first selfie on the surface of the red planet, revealing a level, almost featureless plain that’s exactlly the sort of landing site mission scientists wanted.
Analysis of photographs showing the area around NASA’s InSight Mars lander shows no signs of any large rocks or depressions that might affect placement of the spacecraft’s science instruments.
NASA officials have determined that the robotic InSight lander is ready for its mission to Mars after concluding that the probe should not suffer the same flaw that led to a crack in a heat shield undergoing tests for the space agency’s Mars 2020 rover.