Me watching InSight landing live online. (Photo by me)
If I were a reasonably intelligent Martian in the vicinity of any of the NASA rovers/landers, my question whether there is life elsewhere in the universe would have been answered so definitively a long time ago. That is presuming that as a Martian my brain would have evolved in a way that would ponder such existential questions.
Now that NASA's Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport or InSight lander has so precisely landed in a region named Elysium Planitia I would have even less doubt about whether life exists elsewhere. Interestingly, here on Earth we still do not know the answer to that question other than educated conjectures.
Of course, we have no reason to believe that there is even marginally intelligent life on Mars, let alone the kind that would look at any of the rovers/landers and conclude that the question has been answered.
Like millions, I too sat glued to my computer watching the live NASA feed online as InSight began its approach, descent and landing yesterday afternoon. I am never without the sense of marvel at the scientific, technological and engineering accomplishment of NASA every time I watch a mission like this unfold. That a probe can be on an almost seven-month, 300-million-mile (458-million-kilometer) journey from Earth and soft-land on another planet pretty much at a spot chosen perhaps years before its launch never ceases to amaze me.
In this particular mission, what was even more remarkable was that apart from InSight two small experimental Mars Cube One (MarCO) CubeSats, were launched on the same rocket and followed the lander to Mars. They were the ones which first sent the telemetry confirming the landing was perfect.
"We hit the Martian atmosphere at 12,300 mph (19,800 kilometers per hour), and the whole sequence to touching down on the surface took only six-and-a-half minutes," said InSight project manager Tom Hoffman at JPL. "During that short span of time, InSight had to autonomously perform dozens of operations and do them flawlessly — and by all indications that is exactly what our spacecraft did."
A NASA press release quoted Hoffman as saying, "We are solar powered, so getting the arrays out and operating is a big deal. With the arrays providing the energy we need to start the cool science operations, we are well on our way to thoroughly investigate what's inside of Mars for the very first time."
It said InSight will begin to collect science data within the first week after landing, though the teams will focus mainly on preparing to set InSight's instruments on the Martian ground. At least two days after touchdown, the engineering team will begin to deploy InSight's 5.9-foot-long (1.8-meter-long) robotic arm so that it can take images of the landscape.
For the record, my only contribution to the mission was to watch it live online and take the selfie above like a jackass.