NASA's Mars Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport (InSight) lander is scheduled to touch down on the Red Planet at approximately noon PST (3 p.m. EST) on Nov. 26, and viewers everywhere can watch coverage of the event live on NASA Television, the agency's website and social media platforms.
Launched on May 5, InSight marks NASA's first Mars landing since the Curiosity rover in 2012. The landing will kick off a two-year mission in which InSight will become the first spacecraft to study Mars' deep interior. Its data also will help scientists understand the formation of all rocky worlds, including our own.
InSight is being followed to Mars by two miniature NASA spacecraft, jointly called Mars Cube One (MarCO), the first deep-space mission for CubeSats. If MarCO makes its planned Mars flyby, it will attempt to relay data from InSight as it enters the planet's atmosphere and lands.
InSight and MarCO flight controllers will monitor the spacecraft's entry, descent and landing from Mission Control at JPL.
Broadcast Schedule
All NASA TV news conferences will be available on the agency's website at www.nasa.gov/live. Briefing times and speakers are subject to change. The public may ask questions on social media during the events by tagging them with #askNASA.
Wednesday, Nov. 21
- 10 a.m. PST (1 p.m. EST) - News conference: Mission engineering overview
- 11 a.m. PST (2 p.m. EST) - News conference: Mission science overview
Sunday, Nov. 25
- 10 a.m. PST (1 p.m. EST) - News conference: Final pre-landing update
- 1 p.m. PST (4 p.m. EST) - NASA Social: InSight team Q&A
Monday, Nov. 26: Landing Day
- 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. PST (2 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. EST) - Live landing commentary on the NASA TV Public Channel and online. In addition, an uninterrupted, clean feed of cameras from inside JPL mission control, with mission audio only, will be available at the same time on the NASA TV Media Channel, at www.nasa.gov/ntv and at https://www.youtube.com/user/JPLraw/live.
- About 12 noon PST (3 p.m. EST) - Expected time of InSight touchdown on Mars
- No earlier than 2 p.m. PST (5 p.m. EST) - Post-landing news conference
To watch news conferences and commentary online, you can also visit:
http://www.youtube.com/nasajpl/live
A complete list of ways to watch online can be found at:
https://mars.nasa.gov/insight/timeline/landing/watch-online/
Public Viewing Parties Around the World
About 80 live viewing events for the public to watch the InSight landing will be held worldwide. Major viewing locations include:
--Times Square, New York*
--American Museum of Natural History, New York
--Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum, New York
--Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, Chantilly, Virginia*
--U.S. Space and Rocket Center, Huntsville, Alabama*
--Space Center Houston*
--Adler Planetarium, Chicago
--Denver Museum of Nature and Science
--California Science Center, Los Angeles*
--For a complete list of landing event watch parties, go to: https://mars.nasa.gov/insight/timeline/landing/watch-in-person/
*These venues will have NASA representatives
Resources
An InSight landing press kit is available at:
https://go.nasa.gov/insight_pk
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) and the German Aerospace Center (DLR), are supporting the InSight mission. CNES 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.
For more detailed information on the InSight mission, visit:
Follow the InSight mission on social media at:
https://twitter.com/NASAInSight
https://facebook.com/NASAInSight
Find more information about MarCO here: