InSight Milestone: Wind and Thermal Shield Placed Sol 66

Written by
Emily Lakdawalla
February 4, 2019
Just a brief update to point out that the InSight mission has successfully placed the wind and thermal shield over the seismometer. The seismometer will now be shielded from winds and kept warm over the cold Martian nights, so the quality of its data should dramatically increase. The next step for InSight is the placement of the heat probe instrument, which could happen as early as next week.

It took a couple of days for the skirt on the shield to relax and complete its connection with the ground, as the weight of the chain mail tugs on the tightly folded thermal blanketing material.

Here's what that chain mail skirt looks like in real life.

I think the engineers are pretty happy to have this step completed!
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