[dropcap]I[/dropcap]n just hours, NASA’s InSight spacecraft will enter the atmosphere of Mars after traveling 301,223,981 miles during a seven-month period. If all goes well, the craft will enter the atmosphere, deploy a chute and utilize retro-rockets to touch down on the red planet six minutes before 11 am Alaska time today.

NASA’s InSight stands for Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport. While NASA has studied Earth’s neighbor from orbit and on the surface, this mission will be the agency’s first to study the interior of Mars.

Trajectory corrections were completed on Sunday in order to maneuver the craft to within miles of its “targeted entry point,” and additional minor tweaks will take place about two hours prior to entry into the atmosphere. Those adjustments will be the last made by the team as robots take over to guide the craft the rest of the way.

“It’s taken more than a decade to bring InSight from a concept to a spacecraft approaching Mars — and even longer since I was first inspired to try to undertake this kind of mission,” said Bruce Banerdt of JPL, InSight’s principal investigator. “But even after landing, we’ll need to be patient for the science to begin.”

The need for patience is necessary as it will take two to three months for InSight to set up its instruments, and another several weeks to position each and calibrate those instruments.

The Internet public will be able to view the anticipated landing on all NASA TV video channels including YouTube, Facebook, JPL feed and Twitch this morning.

Watch InSight Mars landing on YouTube

Entry into the Martian atmosphere must be precise at 12 degrees. If it were to hit at a shallower angle, the craft will just bounce off of the atmosphere and  proceed on into space, if it hits at a steeper angle, it will burn up in the atmosphere. When the capsule hits the atmosphere, it will be traveling at 12,300 miles per hour.

Within three and a half minutes of its first encounter with Mars atmosphere, InSight’s chutes will deploy to slow the craft down. Explosive bolts will detonate 15 seconds later blowing the heat shields away and a handful of seconds later, the landing legs will extend.

InSight will continue its decent with the chutes for an additional two minutes before it drops out of the conical capsule containing it and ignites its landing thrusters for the final 45 seconds before touching down.

While it takes eight minutes seven seconds for a radio signal to reach earth from Mars and the entire landing sequence from entry to landing takes approximately seven minutes, earth viewers will still be awaiting entry over a minute after the actual touchdown occurs. 

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