Introduction: Mars InSight Entry, Descent and Landing Flight Reconstruction

The Journal of Spacecraft and Rockets Mars InSight Entry, Descent and Landing Flight Reconstruction Virtual Collection is a collection of papers documenting the EDL system performance and EDL operations activities of the InSight landing. A list of the papers included in the collection is provided in Table 1. Like the Phoenix EDL system, the InSight EDL system was designed as a ballistic entry system with no expected angle of attack. However, like Phoenix, InSight did generate a small angle of attack that resulted in the vehicle flying a generally lift down trajectory, which resulted in higher-than expected deceleration load, and shorter-than-expected time from entry to landing. The possible reasons for the trim behavior are discussed in the Virtual Collection. Additionally, the collection contains predicted and reconstructed flight dynamics performance of the EDL system. A significant development for InSight was the creation of a landing approach operations plan that could react and adapt to a changing atmosphere, critical for landing during dust storm season, which is described in the collection. Together, the papers in the collection document approach operations, predicted flight performance, and flight reconstruction of InSight’s successful landing on Mars.