Meet MarCO: Engineer Builds Mars Spacecraft That Can Fit in Your Backpack

NASA-JPL engineer Anne Marinan is among the first to send CubeSats into deep space with the Mars Cube One (MarCO) mission. These twin spacecraft may be small but Anne has big hopes for how they could change the future of exploration.

NASA MarCO is a flyby technology demonstration that, if successful, will provide NASA the ability to quickly transmit status information about the Mars InSight lander as it descends to the Red Planet in November 2018. While InSight won't rely on MarCO for communications, MarCO will blaze a trail for a class of miniature spacecraft called CubeSats.

Learn more about MarCO at: https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/cubesat/missions/marco.php

Keep up with InSight at: https://mars.nasa.gov/insight