"A second firing of the Centaur stage’s hydrogen-fueled RL10 engine gave InSight the speed it needed to break away from the gravitational pull of Earth. After achieving escape velocity, the Centaur released the 1,530-pound (694-kilogram) InSight spacecraft at 5:38 a.m. PDT (8:38 a.m. EDT; 1238 GMT).
A few moments later, two briefcase-sized CubeSats designed and built at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory deployed from a carrier on the Centaur’s aft bulkhead. The twin Mars Cube One, or MarCO, nanospacecraft will demonstrate miniaturized satellite technology in deep space, and they became the first CubeSats to leave Earth orbit with Saturday’s launch.
No comments:
Post a Comment