InSight Archives » Page 4 of 5

March 7th, 2016

Will NASA’s InSight Mars Mission Launch in 2018?

Artist’s depiction of InSight spacecraft on the surface of Mars.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

NASA had hoped its next Mars probe would have launched by now. Instead, the agency is mulling whether to spend an extra $150 million to fix a problem with the spacecraft and re-target liftoff for May 2018, the next time Earth and Mars favorably align for flight.

“The fact that I’m standing here talking to you, instead of gloating on the phone (from the Mission Control Center) is a clue that things haven’t gone as well as one may have hoped,” project scientist Bruce Banerdt told a Mars exploration planning group last week.

Launch of InSight, which is designed to study the deep interior of Mars, had been targeted for Friday, March 4. But preparations came to a sudden halt in late December after a nagging technical problem with the spacecraft resurfaced for a fourth time. By then, it was too late to finish another round of repairs before the 2016 launch window closed.

“Everything was ready to go, but then we kind of went off the rails,” Banerdt said.

[ Full Story ]

Posted by tourdemars to: InSight

December 29th, 2015

Launch of NASA’s next Mars mission delayed until at least 2018

NASA’s InSight lander is pictured inside Lockheed Martin’s satellite factory in Colorado. Credit: Lockheed Martin

Persistent problems with a seismometer instrument package will keep NASA’s InSight Mars lander from departing for the red planet during a March launch period, and officials said they will consider shelving the $675 million project if the issues prove too costly to fix.

The InSight spacecraft, a three-legged lander with instruments to study Mars’ interior structure, was supposed to launch in a 26-day window opening 4 March 2016.

Mars launch opportunities only come every 26 months, when the planets are in the right positions to make a direct journey possible.

“When you know you’re going to miss the window, it’s essentially game over, at least for this opportunity,” said John Grunsfeld, associate administrator for NASA’s science mission directorate.

“This is a case where the alignment of the planets matters, and in order to get from the Earth to Mars in the most efficient manner, they’re aligned about every 26 months,” Grunsfeld said 22 December. “So we’re looking at some time in the May 2018 timeframe for the next opportunity.”

[ Full Story ]

Posted by tourdemars to: InSight

September 4th, 2015

Send Your Name to Mars on NASA’s Next Red Planet Mission

Mars enthusiasts around the world can participate in NASA’s journey to Mars by adding their names to a silicon microchip headed to the Red Planet aboard NASA’s InSight Mars lander, scheduled to launch next year.

“Our next step in the journey to Mars is another fantastic mission to the surface,” said Jim Green, director of planetary science at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “By participating in this opportunity to send your name aboard InSight to the Red Planet, you’re showing that you’re part of that journey and the future of space exploration.”

Submissions will be accepted until September 8, 2015. To send your name to Mars aboard InSight, go to: http://go.usa.gov/3Aj3G

[ Full Story ]

Posted by tourdemars to: InSight

August 20th, 2015

NASA to rely on Mars programme’s silent workhorse for years to come

NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, aging and arthritic a decade after its launch, remains productive and is expected to be the primary pipeline for high-resolution maps of Mars for scientists and mission planners over the next decade.

Scientists who want to study Mars’ enigmatic history, tenuous water cycle and climate will continue to rely on the nearly $900 million MRO mission, and engineers charged with selecting landing sites for future Mars rovers, and eventual human expeditions, will use maps created from the orbiter’s imagery, officials said.

And the success of future landers, beginning with NASA’s InSight seismic probe next year, depend in part on MRO’s availability to relay data from the Martian surface to Earth.

[ Full Story ]

Posted by tourdemars to: Budget, Future Missions, InSight, Reconnaissance Orbiter

July 28th, 2015

NASA Mars Orbiter Preparing for Mars Lander’s 2016 Arrival

With its biggest orbit maneuver since 2006, NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) will prepare this week for the arrival of NASA’s next Mars lander, InSight, next year.

A planned 77-second firing of six intermediate-size thrusters on July 29 will adjust the orbit timing of the veteran spacecraft so it will be in position to receive radio transmissions from InSight as the newcomer descends through the Martian atmosphere and touches down on Sept. 28, 2016. These six rocket engines, which were used for trajectory corrections during the spacecraft’s flight from Earth to Mars, can each produce about 22 newtons, or five pounds, of thrust.

“Without making this orbit change maneuver, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter would be unable to hear from InSight during the landing, but this will put us in the right place at the right time,” said MRO Project Manager Dan Johnston of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California.

[ Full Story ]

Posted by tourdemars to: InSight, Reconnaissance Orbiter

June 15th, 2015

NASA Prepares for First Interplanetary CubeSats

When NASA launches its next mission on the journey to Mars – a stationary lander in 2016 – the flight will include two CubeSats. This will be the first time CubeSats have flown in deep space. If this flyby demonstration is successful, the technology will provide NASA the ability to quickly transmit status information about the main spacecraft after it lands on Mars.

The twin communications-relay CubeSats, being built by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, constitute a technology demonstration called Mars Cube One (MarCO). CubeSats are a class of spacecraft based on a standardized small size and modular use of off-the-shelf technologies. Many have been made by university students, and dozens have been launched into Earth orbit using extra payload mass available on launches of larger spacecraft.

[ Full Story ]

Posted by tourdemars to: InSight, Interplanetary Internet

June 5th, 2015

The echo of meteorite impacts could tell us what’s inside Mars TechRadar

We’re told to never judge a book by its cover, but it’s apparently fine to judge what lies inside Mars by listening to the echoes of meteorite impacts.

We know very little about the interior of the Red Planet. We know that once it had a global magnetic field and active volcanoes, but it’s unclear if the core is still molten or not. If it is, plate tectonics and earthquakes (which are called marsquakes on Mars) are a possibility.

To find out, the next spacecraft to arrive on Mars will come equipped with precise seismometers to detect tremors. The InSight Lander will listen carefully for seismic waves caused by meteorites, and use the data to make some educated guesses at what materials it passed through along the way.

[ Full Story ]

Posted by tourdemars to: InSight, Meteorites, Planetology

May 27th, 2015

NASA Begins Testing Mars Lander for Next Mission to Red Planet

Testing is underway on NASA’s next mission on the journey to Mars, a stationary lander scheduled to launch in March 2016.

The lander is called InSight, an abbreviation for Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport. It is about the size of a car and will be the first mission devoted to understanding the interior structure of the Red Planet. Examining the planet’s deep interior could reveal clues about how all rocky planets, including Earth, formed and evolved.

The current testing will help ensure InSight can operate in and survive deep space travel and the harsh conditions of the Martian surface. The spacecraft will lift off from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, and land on Mars about six months later.

The technical capabilities and knowledge gained from Insight, and other Mars missions, are crucial to NASA’s journey to Mars, which includes sending astronauts to the Red Planet in the 2030s.

[ Full Story ]

Posted by tourdemars to: InSight

March 12th, 2015

NASA Eyeing Landing Site for 2016 Mars Mission

NASA is leaning toward one particularly smooth patch of terrain just north of the Martian equator as the landing site for its next robotic Red Planet explorer.
The site lies at about 4 degrees north latitude and 136 degrees east longitude, agency officials said. It’s the leading candidate for NASA’s InSight Mars lander, which is scheduled to launch in March 2016 and touch down on the Red Planet in late September of that year.
“This is wondrous terrain, exactly what we want to land on because it is smooth, flat, with very few rocks in the highest-resolution images,” InSight’s site-selection leader, Matt Golombek of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, said in a statement.

[ Full Story ]

Posted by tourdemars to: InSight

November 17th, 2014

Lockheed Martin Begins Final Assembly of NASA InSight Lander SpaceRef Business

Lockheed Martin has started the assembly, test and launch operations (ATLO) phase for NASA’s InSight Mars lander spacecraft.
The InSight mission will record the first-ever measurements of the interior of the red planet, giving scientists unprecedented detail into the evolution of Mars and other terrestrial planets. InSight is scheduled to launch in March 2016. “The InSight mission is a mix of tried-and-true and new-and-exciting. The spacecraft has a lot of heritage from Phoenix and even back to the Viking landers, but the science has never been done before at Mars,” said Stu Spath, InSight program manager at Lockheed Martin Space Systems. “Physically, InSight looks very much like the Phoenix lander we built, but most of the electronic components are similar to what is currently flying on the MAVEN spacecraft.”

[ Full Story ]

Posted by tourdemars to: InSight, Planetology