The Pale Blue Dot image of Earth , snapped by the Voyager 1 spacecraft in 1990 , is one of themost famed imagesof our planet ever taken . Now , a tiny spacecraft has taken a new image to rival its splendor .
On May 8 NASA sent itsInSight missionto Mars , a lander that will attempt to find “ marsquakes ” on the Red Planet . Hitching a ride on the mission , however , were two tiny CubeSats officially experience as MarCO - A ( Mars Cube One ) and MarCO - B. They ’re more affectionately call Eve and Wall - E severally , an court to the Pixar moving picture of the latter ’s name .
A day after the launch , Wall - E used its fisheye camera to discipline that its eminent - gain feeler had the right way unfolded . But the picture was photobombed by two plaguy intruders , Earth and the Moon .
" Consider it our homage to Voyager , " Andy Klesh , MarCO ’s chief engineer at NASA ’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena , California , say in astatement .
The image was taken more than 1 million kilometers ( 620,000 mile ) from Earth , and shows just what our major planet and the Moon look like split by about 380,000 km ( 240,000 miles ) . Voyager ’s famous photo , shoot from 6 billion kilometer ( 3.7 billion miles ) off , was so removed you could n’t separate the two .
The two mini spacecraft , each about thesize of a briefcase , are basically a technology presentment . They will exercise relaying communications from the InSight lander back to Earth during the landing place on November 26 , 2018 .
If successful , this could supply a cheaper and well-fixed way for future landers to Mars to convey with Earth , without get to swear on a relay artificial satellite . If they go wrong , however , the overall mission wo n’t be hamper , as InSight will be using NASA ’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter ( MRO ) to talk to us .
CubeSats themselves are a relatively raw stock of satellites , countenance scientists and engineers to conduct experiments and tests in infinite at a much grim cost than launch a fully - fledge ballistic capsule . Eve and Wall - E have now journey further into space than any other CubeSats .
" CubeSats have never snuff it this far into space before , so it ’s a large milepost , " said Klesh . " Both our CubeSats are healthy and functioning decently . We ’re looking forward to pick up them journey even far . "
There will be another first at the end of this calendar month , when the CubeSats – separated from the InSight lander – try out their onboard actuation systems . No CubeSat has ever corrected its flight in such a way before , a essential if these two fellow want to get to Mars .
