In roughly six months, two spacecrafts will be landing on Mars. Will the seismometers on InSight be able to detect vibrations from any of those landings?
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$\begingroup$ I thought about this. I could imagine that the impact of the decent stage is strong enough for InSight to detect it. $\endgroup$– RAD6000Sep 6, 2020 at 12:35
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$\begingroup$ related, but your question is different. How could InSight's seismometers be intentionally and meaningfully “pinged”? with four answers and InSight and active pinging of Mars with two answers. $\endgroup$– uhohSep 6, 2020 at 14:00
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I really hope it won't be able to detect Hope, that's orbiting Mars, not landing on it.
InSight was actually made to detect these impacts, as it can help one to understand more about Mars. Fundamentally a heat shield impacting is just a particularly dense meteor.
I think it is likely it will detect Perseverance. The two are fairly close. Specifically it should detect the heat shield crashing, which is known to leave a small crater. This is the very similar Curiosity heat shield, that makes a dent when it lands!
We don't know as much about the Chinese lander, but it is smaller, and is expected to land in Utopia Planitia. That is also relatively close to InSight. I would expect it also to register.
answered Sep 6, 2020 at 12:37