Lockheed Martin and NASA JPL Successfully Land on Mars
November 27, 2018 | Lockheed MartinEstimated reading time: 3 minutes
NASA has a new spacecraft operating on the surface of Mars. The InSight Mars Lander, which was designed, built and tested by Lockheed Martin, navigated the dramatic entry and descent through the Martian atmosphere and touched down on Elysium Planitia in the equatorial region of Mars. Lockheed Martin is the prime contractor responsible for the complete spacecraft system – cruise stage, aeroshell and the lander itself. Mission management and navigation were handled by NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and spacecraft operations were performed by engineers at Lockheed Martin Space's Mission Support Area in Littleton, Colorado.
"The InSight lander is a remarkable spacecraft. Through the entire entry, descent and landing it performed flawlessly," said Stu Spath, InSight program manager and director of Deep Space Exploration at Lockheed Martin Space. "NASA's JPL, which has been a pioneer in Mars exploration for decades, partners with both academia and private industry to bring the best expertise and innovation forward to make important exploration missions like InSight a success."
After landing, the spacecraft waited approximately seven minutes to use its X-band small deep space transponder to send a tone confirming the health of the spacecraft. Then, 25 minutes after that, the lander deployed its two solar arrays, with a width of 19 feet, 8 inches, to begin recharging the spacecraft's batteries.
Two NASA orbiters, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) and 2001 Mars Odyssey, were also involved in this historic mission. MRO received and recorded InSight data during its journey to the surface, and will send it back to Earth later today. Both MRO and Odyssey will provide UHF relay during the entirety of the InSight surface mission – Odyssey in the morning and MRO in the afternoon. Both MRO and Odyssey spacecraft were built by Lockheed Martin and both are operated for JPL by the company.
Lockheed Martin has been an industry partner with NASA and the JPL for more than four decades in the exploration of the surface of Mars. Beginning in 1976 with Viking missions, Lockheed Martin has been at the forefront in the development of eleven Mars-bound spacecraft and has played a significant role in all NASA missions to Mars.
"Our team is thrilled by the successful landing of the InSight spacecraft," Lisa Callahan, vice president and general manager of Commercial Civil Space at Lockheed Martin Space. "With missions like this, there are no guarantees; historically, less than half of the world's missions to Mars have been successful. Every arrival at another planet is an incredibly complex engineering challenge. But that's what we do best at Lockheed Martin. It's an honor for us to partner with NASA and JPL on yet another Mars mission."
JPL manages InSight for NASA's Science Mission Directorate. InSight is part of NASA's Discovery Program, managed by the agency's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. Lockheed Martin Space in Denver built the InSight spacecraft, including its cruise stage and lander, and supports spacecraft operations for the mission.
A number of European partners, including France's Centre National d'Études Spatiales (CNES), the Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris (IPGP) and the German Aerospace Center (DLR), are supporting the InSight mission. CNES and IPGP provided the Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure (SEIS) instrument, with significant contributions from the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research (MPS) in Germany, the Swiss Institute of Technology (ETH) in Switzerland, Imperial College and Oxford University in the United Kingdom, and JPL. DLR provided the Heat Flow and Physical Properties Package (HP3) instrument, with significant contributions from the Space Research Center (CBK) of the Polish Academy of Sciences and Astronika in Poland. Spain's Centro de Astrobiología (CAB) supplied the wind sensors.
About Lockheed Martin
Headquartered in Bethesda, Maryland, Lockheed Martin is a global security and aerospace company that employs approximately 100,000 people worldwide and is principally engaged in the research, design, development, manufacture, integration and sustainment of advanced technology systems, products and services.
Suggested Items
Cicor Records Solid Growth in Q1
04/16/2024 | CicorThe Cicor Group continued to grow in the first three months of the year. Quarterly sales increased by 11.8% to CHF 107.3 million compared to the first quarter of the previous year (Q1/2023: CHF 96.0 million).
TT Electronics Awarded Contract with Kongsberg Defence and Aerospace
04/11/2024 | TT ElectronicsTT Electronics, a leading provider of global manufacturing solutions and engineered technologies, announced today that its Fairford UK business has been awarded a new contract with long-standing customer Kongsberg Defence and Aerospace (Kongsberg) for the production of complex cable harness solutions.
Cicor Successfully Completes Acquisition of TT Electronics IoT Solutions Ltd.
04/03/2024 | CicorThe Cicor Group has successfully completed the acquisition of TT Electronics IoT Solutions Ltd. with three production sites in the UK and China.
Absolute EMS Successfully Recertifies ISO 9001:2015 and AS9100 Standards
03/26/2024 | Absolute EMS, Inc.Absolute EMS, Inc., an award-winning EMS provider of turnkey contract manufacturing services, is proud to announce the successful recertification of its ISO 9001:2015 and AS9100 Rev D SAE International Aerospace Standards.
Arlon EMC Receives IPC-4101 QPL Recertification
03/20/2024 | Arlon Electronic MaterialsArlon Electronic Materials has successfully completed an intensive two-day recertification audit by IPC Validation Services that examined Arlon’s manufacturing processes and testing procedures to assure that they are in conformance to the requirements of IPC-4101E-WAM1, the Specification for Base Materials for Rigid and Multilayer Printed Boards.