Mars InSight Lander Seen in First Images from Space

On Nov. 26, NASA's InSight mission knew the spacecraft touched down within an 81-mile-long (130-kilometer-long) landing ellipse on Mars. Now, the team has pinpointed InSight's exact location using images from HiRISE, a powerful camera onboard another NASA spacecraft, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).

The InSight lander, its heat shield and parachute were spotted by HiRISE (which stands for High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment) in one set of images last week on Dec. 6, and again on Tuesday, Dec. 11. The lander, heat shield and parachute are within 1,000 feet (several hundred meters) of one another on Elysium Planitia, the flat lava plain selected as InSight's landing location.

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Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona



An annotated image of the surface of Mars, taken by the HiRISE camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) on May 30, 2014. The annotations - added after InSight landed on Nov. 26, 2018 - display the locations of NASA's InSight lander, its heat shield and parachute.

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The High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) onboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter captured images on NASA’s InSight Lander on Elysium Planitia, Mars.

NASA’s Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport (InSight) landed on Elysium Planitia, Mars, on 26 November 2018.