Mars 360: NASA's Mars InSight Lander - Sol 10 (360video 8K)

NASA's Mars InSight Lander Martian Solar Day 10: InSight's First Selfie

This panorama combines 10 exposures taken by the lander's Instrument Deployment Camera (IDC), located on the elbow of its robotic arm, during the Sol 10 of InSight's work on Mars (December 7, 2018). Additionally 86 images of landscape was taken on Sol 14 (December 11, 2018). Some parts of the panorama has been retouched.

NASA's InSight lander isn't camera-shy. The spacecraft used a camera on its robotic arm to take its first selfie — a mosaic made up of 11 images. This is the same imaging process used by NASA's Curiosity rover mission, in which many overlapping pictures are taken and later stitched together. Visible in the selfie are the lander's solar panel and its entire deck, including its science instruments.

InSight's landing team deliberately chose a landing region in Elysium Planitia that is relatively free of rocks. Even so, the landing spot turned out even better than they hoped. The spacecraft sits in what appears to be a nearly rock-free "hollow" — a depression created by a meteor impact that later filled with sand. That should make it easier for one of InSight's instruments, the heat-flow probe, to bore down to its goal of 16 feet (5 meters) below the surface.

About InSight

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 and the Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris (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 London 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.

Written by Andrew Good
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif

NASA's Mars Exploration Program
Source images credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech
Stitching and retouching: Andrew Bodrov / 360pano.eu (https://tinyurl.com/sol010)

Music in this video
Song: Silhouettes
Artist: The Intangible (https://ambrosia57.bandcamp.com/)

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