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InSight's Entry, Descent and Landing

Oct. 25, 2018
In this artist's impression NASA's InSight spacecraft begins Entry, Descent and Landing (EDL) as it reaches the Martian atmosphere.

An artist's impression of InSight's Entry, Descent and Landing (EDL).

InSight is short for Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport. The mission is the first outer space explorer to study the "inner space" of Mars. The lander probes deep beneath the surface of Mars to study the fingerprints of the processes that first formed the rocky planets of our solar system.

Entry, descent, and landing (EDL) begins when the spacecraft reaches the Martian atmosphere, about 80 miles (about 128 kilometers) above the surface, and ends with the lander safe and sound on the surface of Mars six minutes later.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, California, manages the InSight Project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Lockheed Martin Space, Denver, Colorado built the spacecraft. InSight is part of NASA's Discovery Program, which is managed by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.

For more information about the mission, go to https://mars.nasa.gov/insight.

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