Good morning from Los Angeles! Today at approximately 1954 GMT InSight will touch down in Elysium Planitia, and this is where we'll discuss all the events associated with that. NASA TV (link) will provide live coverage starting at 1900 GMT. Official status updates will be published here (link)

Here's a list of significant events (source: JPL). Times listed first are Earth-received US Pacific Standard Time (GMT-8):

11:40 a.m. PST (2:40 p.m. EST) — Separation from the cruise stage that carried the mission to Mars
11:41 a.m. PST (2:41 p.m. EST) — Turn to orient the spacecraft properly for atmospheric entry
11:47 a.m. PST (2:47 p.m. EST) — Atmospheric entry at about 12,300 mph (19,800 kph), beginning the entry, descent and landing phase
11:49 a.m. PST (2:49 p.m. EST) — Peak heating of the protective heat shield reaches about 2,700°F (about 1,500°C)
-15 seconds later — Peak deceleration, with the intense heating causing possible temporary dropouts in radio signals
11:51 a.m. PST (2:51 p.m. EST) — Parachute deployment
-15 seconds later — Separation from the heat shield
-10 seconds later — Deployment of the lander's three legs
11:52 a.m. PST (2:52 p.m. EST) — Activation of the radar that will sense the distance to the ground
11:53 a.m. PST (2:53 p.m. EST) — First acquisition of the radar signal
-20 seconds later — Separation from the back shell and parachute
-0.5 second later — The retrorockets, or descent engines, begin firing
-2.5 seconds later — Start of the "gravity turn" to get the lander into the proper orientation for landing
-22 seconds later — InSight begins slowing to a constant velocity (from 17 mph to a constant 5 mph, or from 27 kph to 8 kph) for its soft landing
11:54 a.m. PST (2:54 p.m. EST) — Expected touchdown on the surface of Mars
12:01 p.m. PST (3:01 p.m. EST) — "Beep" from InSight's X-band radio directly back to Earth, indicating InSight is alive and functioning on the surface of Mars
No earlier than 12:04 p.m. PST (3:04 p.m. EST), but possibly the next day — First image from InSight on the surface of Mars
No earlier than 5:35 p.m. PST (8:35 p.m. EST) — Confirmation from InSight via NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter that InSight's solar arrays have deployed


Get the peanuts ready, and let's land on Mars!

GO INSIGHT!!!

Mars looking real big on "Eyes".

3 out of 4 of Madrid's DSN antennas are on InSight and the MARCOs right now.

Now's not a good time to phone home Oppy! Get in line!

I'm sure Spirit is thinking about it ;-)

Paolo

Good luck, everybody!

Gotta say, there is a surprisingly large amount of media attention being paid to this landing. In Los Angeles, local news has been periodically reminding everyone & even the network talk shows have mentioned it. The NASDAQ stock exchange apparently is promoting the coverage as well, which is quite unexpected.

I was also informed that all the Los Angeles public libraries are showing the landing live, and are handing out both library and InSight swag. Great EPO!!!

NASA TV live now!

Live feed started....

Hi! I'm new to this site. Thanks for letting me join.

Question: At what time will Insight land, in Mars local time?

NASA TV Media channel is showing the Insight mission control, but as far as I can see, there is no audio (yet?)

I think its early afternoon there at landing..but I have no exact time now.

Fingers crossed !

Got good audio from the link on the first post, akuo. Might want to reload or check your audio settings.

Sometimes it does seem to go quiet for a bit as well.

Just saw a shot of our chairman and founder djellison on console for MarCO!

EDIT: Nope, wasn't him.

Cruise stage sep in 2 min.

MarCO UHF lock.

Parachute deployment is at Mach 1.66. What is Mach speed on Mars with air pressure and temperature so different than Earth's?

Depends on the things you described, but in general lower because of the vastly lower air density.

MarCOs relaying data!

Atmospheric entry....

DEPLOY PEANUTS!!!!!!!

CHUTE DEPLOYED!!!

Radar has locked on to ground...

did we land

T O U C H D O W N !!!!!!!!

TOUCHDOWN!

touchdown!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm getting too old for this kind of stress! Great news and congrats to the team.

YEAH !!!!!!!!!!!!!

Standing by for X-band beep and maybe an image relayed by MarCO....

yeah right. I always forget this happened 27 minutes ago. We are getting delayed data.

8 soft landings out of 9 attempts since 1976 --- what a record ! Congratulations to all.

SURFACE IMAGE!!!! Dust cover is dusty!!!

It looks like a few bugs splattered on the camera during descent

link

Lander is nominal.

Click to view attachment

Screen capture

will that lens cover come off?

Post landing briefing at 5pm EST.




Yes.

Slightly enhanced image:

Yes, of course. Not till it's safe to do so, though (gotta let the landing dust settle) and there are other critical events of higher priority, particularly solar panel deployment.

First image up already!
https://mars.nasa.gov/insight-raw-images/su...0000_0106M_.PNG
The surface looks very smooth.

Okay, this is a quick ten minute job to remove the worst of the dust. More dust than Mars, unfortunately.

looks similar to phoenix landing zone. pretty boring for images but wealthy in science

Forum note: Later on today or possibly tomorrow after the early critical deployments are carried out this thread will be closed and we'll open a new surface operations thread.

What a ride that was!!!!

Heres the link for the first picture from Insight:


https://mars.nasa.gov/insight/multimedia/ra...mission=insight

That was pretty quick, considering it's Sol 0.

Huh. Crud on the dust cover is a lot clumpier looking than what we got on the MAHLI dust cover on MSL. Maybe more localized material from the different thruster configuration and camera placement.