NASA to live stream the touchdown of InSight spacecraft on Mars

As NASA's InSight spacecraft touches down on the Red Planet on November 26, people from around the world will be able to watch the event live on NASA Television, the agency's website and social media platforms, including on YouTube, the US space agency said. The event will take place at 1.30 am in India on November 27.

InSight will help scientists understand the formation of all rocky worlds. The spacecraft is being followed to Mars by two mini-spacecraft comprising NASA's Mars Cube One (MarCO), the first deep-space mission for CubeSats. 

Also read | Cyclone Gaja to make landfall in Tamil Nadu today; schools, colleges to remain shut

About 80 live viewing events for the public to watch the InSight landing will take place around the world, NASA.

Launched on May 5, Mars Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport (InSight) lander 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, NASA said. 

InSight 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 NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, where all landing events will take place.

ALSO READ |  Delhi Pollution: Implement odd-even scheme or ban non-CNG vehicles, EPCA tells CPCB 

Five things to know about InSight's Mars landing:

1. Successful landing on Mars is hard. Only about 40 percent of the missions ever sent to Mars – by any space agency – have been successful.
2. InSight uses tried-and-true technology. The spacecraft afterseparating from a cruise stage, an aeroshell descends through the atmosphere. The parachute and retrorockets slow the spacecraft down, and suspended legs absorb some shock from the touchdown.
3. InSight is landing on the biggest parking lot on Mars. For the mission's team, the landing site at Elysium Planitia is sometimes thought as "the biggest parking lot on Mars.
4. InSight was built to land in a dust storm. InSight’s engineers have built a tough spacecraft, able to touch down safely in a dust storm if it needs to. The spacecraft's heat shield is designed to be thick enough to withstand being "sandblasted" by dust.  
5. After landing, InSight will provide new science about rocky planets InSight will teach us about the interior of planets like our own. The mission team hopes that by studying the deep interior of Mars, we can learn how other rocky worlds, including Earth and the Moon, formed.

(With inputs from agencies)