A Pale Blue Dot, As Seen by a CubeSat
One of NASA's MarCO CubeSats has taken its first image.
NASA's Voyager 1 took aclassic portrait of
Earthfrom several billion miles away in 1990. Now a class of tiny, boxy
spacecraft, known as CubeSats, have just taken their own version of a "pale
blue dot" image, capturing Earth and its moon in one shot.NASA set a new distance record for CubeSats on May 8 when
a pair of CubeSats called Mars Cube One (MarCO) reached 621,371 miles (1
million kilometers) from Earth. One of the CubeSats, called MarCO-B (and affectionately
known as "Wall-E" to the MarCO team) used a fisheye camera to snap
its first photo on May 9. That photo is part of the process used by the
engineering team to confirm the spacecraft's high-gain antenna has properly
unfolded.As a bonus, it captured Earth and its moon as tiny specks
floating in space."Consider it our homage to Voyager," said Andy
Klesh, MarCO's chief engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena,
California. JPL built the CubeSats and leads the MarCO mission. "CubeSats
have never gone this far into space before, so it's a big milestone. Both our
CubeSats are healthy and functioning properly. We're looking forward to seeing
them travel even farther."The MarCO spacecraft are the first CubeSats ever launched
to deep space. Most never go beyond Earth orbit; they generally stay below 497
miles (800 kilometers) above the planet. Though they were originally developed to teach university students
about satellites, CubeSats are now a major commercial technology, providing data
on everything from shipping routes to environmental changes.The MarCO CubeSats were launched on May 5 along with NASA's
InSight lander, a spacecraft that will touch down on Mars and study the
planet's deep interior for the first time. InSight, short for Interior
Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport, will
attempt to land on Mars on Nov. 26. JPL also leads the InSight mission.Mars landings are notoriously challenging due to the Red
Planet's thin atmosphere. The MarCO CubeSats will follow along behind InSight
during its cruise to Mars. Should they make it all the way to Mars, they will
radio back data about InSight while it enters the atmosphere and descends to
the planet's surface. The high-gain antennas are key to that effort; the MarCO
team have early confirmation that the antennas have successfully deployed, but
will continue to test them in the weeks ahead.InSight won't rely on the MarCO mission for data relay.
That job will fall to NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. But the MarCOs could be
a pathfinder so that future missions can "bring their own relay" to
Mars. They could also demonstrate a number of experimental technologies,
including their antennas, radios and propulsion systems, which will allow
CubeSats to collect science in the future.Later this month, the MarCOs will attempt the first
trajectory correction maneuvers ever performed by CubeSats. This maneuver lets
them steer towards Mars, blazing a trail for CubeSats to come.For more information
about MarCO, visit:https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/cubesat/missions/marco.php