51 – Entry, Descent, and Landing

On November 26th, 2018, NASA successfully landed the InSight spacecraft on the surface of Mars. It was their 8th successful landing, went picture-perfect, and seemed to defy the common thought that Mars landings rarely work. Jake recounts the landing, provides historical context to the events, and asks the question of whether NASA’s entries, descents, and landings are as failure-prone as some make it out to be. We Talk InSight and Entry, Descent, and Landing Viking Press Kit Mars Pathfinder Press Kit Mars Polar Lander Press Kit Mars Exploration Rovers Press Kit Mars Phoenix Press Kit Mars Science Laboratory Press Kit InSight Press Kit InSight L-1 Briefing Paper on Drag-assisted entry at Mars Summary of Mars EDLs Previous Coverage of InSight Episode 36: Systems Engineering InSight (feat. Farah Alibay) Episode 41: Thirty Years to the Centre of Mars (feat. Bruce Banerdt, Philippe Lognonné, and Tim Linn) Episode 50: The Journey to Mars is Hyperbolic (feat. Mark Wallace) Follow Jake & WeMartians Website (www.wemartians.com) Patreon (www.patreon.com/wemartians) The WeMartians Travel Grant WeMartians Shop (shop.wemartians.com) Check out all the new merchandise out in time for the holidays! Twitter (@we_martians) Jake’s Twitter (@JakeOnOrbit) New Merchandise! We’ve got a whole bunch of new merchandise in our shop! Check out the new designs, including Off-Nominal gear! Our Sponsor WeMartians is sponsored by MOVA Globes. They rotate without cords or batteries! Thanks to MOVA Globes for helping us explore Mars together. Check out this antique celestial globe! It’s a reprint of Globo Celeste, by Giovanni Cassini in 1792 (no, not that Giovanni Cassini). WeMartians music is “RetroFuture”, “Electrodoodle”, and “On My Way” by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/