Mountain Views News          Saturday, March 19, 2016

THE WORLD AROUND USTHE WORLD AROUND US 
NASA TARGETS MAY 2018 LAUNCH OF MARS INSIGHT MISSION 
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NASA TARGETS MAY 2018 LAUNCH OF MARS INSIGHT MISSION 
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NASA’s Interior Exploration using Seismic 
Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport(InSight) mission to study the deep interior of Marsis targeting a new launch window that begins May5, 2018, with a Mars landing scheduled for Nov. 26,2018. 

InSight’s primary goal is to help us understandhow rocky planets—including Earth—formed 
and evolved. Th e spacecraft had been on track tolaunch this month until a vacuum leak in its primescience instrument prompted NASA in Decemberto suspend preparations for launch.

InSight project managers recently briefed 
officials at NASA and France’s space agency,
Centre National d’Études Spatiales (CNES), on apath forward; the proposed plan to redesign thescience instrument was accepted in support of a2018 launch. 

“The science goals of InSight are compelling,
and the NASA and CNES plans to overcomethe technical challenges are sound,” said JohnGrunsfeld, associate administrator for NASA’s 
Science Mission Directorate in Washington. “Th e 
quest to understand the interior of Mars has beena longstanding goal of planetary scientists fordecades. We’re excited to be back on the path for alaunch, now in 2018.” 

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena,
California, will redesign, build and conduct 
qualifications of the new vacuum enclosure for theSeismic Experiment for Interior Structure (SEIS),
the component that failed in December. CNES willlead instrument level integration and test activities,
allowing the InSight Project to take advantage ofeach organization’s proven strengths. Th e two 
agencies have worked closely together to establisha project schedule that accommodates these plans,
and scheduled interim reviews over the next six 
months to assess technical progress and continuedfeasibility.

The cost of the two-year delay is being assessed. Anestimate is expected in August, once arrangementswith the launch vehicle provider have been made.

The seismometer instrument’s main sensors need 
to operate within a vacuum chamber to provide theexquisite sensitivity needed for measuring groundmovements as small as half the radius of a hydrogenatom. The rework of the seismometer’s vacuum 
container will result in a finished, thoroughly tested 


instrument in 2017 that will maintain a high degreeof vacuum around the sensors through rigors oflaunch, landing, deployment and a two-year primemission on the surface of Mars.

 “The shared and renewed commitment to this 
mission continues our collaboration to fi nd clues 
in the heart of Mars about the early evolution of 

our solar system,” said Marc Pircher, director ofvisit: http://www.nasa.gov/insight

CNES’s Toulouse Space Centre.More information about NASA’s journey toThe mission’s international science team includes Mars is available online at:

researchers from Austria, Belgium, Canada, France, http://www.nasa.gov/journeytomars

Germany, Japan, Poland, Spain, Switzerland, the

United Kingdom and the United States.You can contact Bob Eklund at: b.eklund@ 
For addition information about the mission, MtnViewsNews.com . 


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