Mission "kubsatov" Mars admitted successful

While all watched last landing on Mars by NASA's device, in parallel with this, there was another important event. Two tiny cube-satellite - "kubsata" (CubeSat) - traveled with the InSight, sending data back to Earth, coming from the probe. Nobody ever sent these tiny satellites that far before. Could this mark the beginning of the mission era of cheap studies of the solar system?

The spacecraft, known as MarCO-A and MarCO-B, went into space aboard the same rocket that launched InSight in May this year. However, they are fitted with other equipment, as opposed to the NASA module. And they just flew to the InSight on the same trajectory to Mars. Flying with "Insight" 484 million kilometers away, they were in space, not landing on Mars.

Kubsaty conquered Mars

Kubsaty - are inexpensive satellites intended for fundamental space research. By themselves, they are solid cubes. Some satellites are composed of one of the dice, are some of the few. In the case of Mars Cube One, NASA has collected them from the original six units. The total cost of the project amounted to $ 18 million - it is much smaller than usual demand for deep space probes. NASA originally experienced these tiny ships, making a picture of the Earth within a few weeks after the launch, and then we have nothing about them heard until InSight not realized his landing. Then kubsaty we made contact and used his experimental antenna with high-gain data with InSight to Earth. Thus proving that the small-scale satellites are ideal for exploration of the solar system.

Unfortunately, at some point the system MarCO-A worked correctly. MarCO-B managed to send a few pictures of Mars that NASA helped to collect some data about the atmosphere. The photo above kubsat made at an altitude of about 7600 kilometers away from Mars.

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