Satellite NASA Insight will accompany in flight to Mars two microsatellites-kubsat

NASA’s next research unit, InSight , which will land on Mars in 2016, will be accompanied by two CubeSat micro-satellites . The design of the two satellites called MarCO (Mars Cube One). All this trio into space will be carried away by the Atlas 5 rocket next March. To Mars, they will arrive in September. Microsatellites will play the role of signal repeaters with InSight during its landing.

The InSight mission ( interior exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport) is to land a device on the planet's surface, which will be equipped with a seismometer and a temperature sensor. With the help of the station, scientists hope to understand the geological evolution of Mars. The landing technology will be the same as that of the already tested Phoenix spacecraft, which successfully worked on Mars in 2008 for five months instead of the prescribed three. This will help reduce potential risks.
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Kubsaty is an established microsatellite format, which is created from modules with a minimum size of 10 × 10 × 10 cm (1 unit). Two identical Martian cubsat will have a size of 6 units - 60 × 10 × 10 cm.



This standard was proposed in 1999 and has since gained popularity among space enthusiasts. Under it develop elements of design, batteries, sensors, etc. On the basis of the details offered on the Internet, almost anyone can assemble their own microsatellite. But not everyone can start it - a launch costs several tens of thousands of dollars.

From the Earth to Mars, the MarCO will fly independently and independently of InSight. As explained by Jim Green, director of NASA's planet exploration, MarCO is an experiment that does not affect the success of a mission. Flying past the red planet, the Kubsat will transmit the necessary information about the landing to Earth, and then continue on their way in order to finally enter the solar orbit.

In the absence of cubsat information would be transmitted through the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) - a multifunctional automatic interplanetary station, which has been in Mars orbit since 2006. But in this case, the engineers would have to wait an extra hour until the MRO received all the data from the landing module, processed it, and transmitted it to Earth.

This is certainly not the last mission with the use of cubsat - NASA is already developing a special standard for microsatellites , intended for the study of other planets.