Location and Setting of the Mars InSight Lander, Instruments, and Landing Site.

ABSTRACT: Knowing precisely where a spacecraft lands on Mars is important for understanding the regional and local context, setting, and the offset between the inertial and cartographic frames. For the InSight spacecraft, the payload of geophysical and environmental sensors also particularly benefits from knowing exactly where the instruments are located. A ~30 cm/pixel image acquired from orbit after landing clearly resolves the lander and the large circular solar panels. This image was carefully georeferenced to a hierarchically generated and coregistered set of decreasing resolution orthoimages and digital elevation models to the established positive east, planetocentric coordinate system. The lander is located at 4.502384°N, 135.623447°E at an elevation of -2,613.426 m with respect to the geoid

SUBMITTER: Golombek M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7583488 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature