InSight Mission to Mars

[Rick]

Single Site on Mars Advanced for 2016 NASA Lander

NASA's next mission to Mars, scheduled to launch one year from today to examine the Red Planet's deep interior and investigate how rocky planets like Earth evolved, now has one specific site under evaluation as the best place to land and deploy its science instruments.

The mission called InSight -- an acronym for "Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport" -- is scheduled to launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California. The launch period runs from March 4 to March 30, 2016, and will mark the first California launch of an interplanetary mission. Installation of science-instrument hardware onto the spacecraft has begun and a key review has given thumbs up to integration and testing of the mission's component systems from several nations participating in the international project.

More: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=4501
And: http://insight.jpl.nasa.gov

[Rick]

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.

More: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=4601

[Rick]

NASA Mars Orbiter Preparing for Mars Lander's 2016 Arrival

July 29, 2014 (4:10 p.m. PT) NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter successfully completed a maneuver on July 29, 2015, to put the spacecraft in the right place on Sept. 28, 2016, for supporting arrival of the InSight Mars lander mission. The maneuver's engine burn began at 6:21:31 a.m. PDT (13:21:31 UTC) and lasted for 75 seconds.

More: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=4670

[Rick]

NASA Targets May 2018 Launch of Mars InSight Mission

NASA's Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport (InSight) mission to study the deep interior of Mars is targeting a new launch window that begins May 5, 2018, with a Mars landing scheduled for Nov. 26, 2018.

InSight's primary goal is to help us understand how rocky planets -- including Earth -- formed and evolved. The spacecraft had been on track to launch this month until a vacuum leak in its prime science instrument prompted NASA in December to suspend preparations for launch.

InSight project managers recently briefed officials at NASA and France's space agency, Centre National d'Études Spatiales (CNES), on a path forward; the proposed plan to redesign the science instrument was accepted in support of a 2018 launch.

More: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=5746

[Rick]

NASA's Next Mars Mission to Investigate Interior of Red Planet

Preparation of NASA's next spacecraft to Mars, InSight, has ramped up this summer, on course for launch next May from Vandenberg Air Force Base in central California -- the first interplanetary launch in history from America's West Coast.

Lockheed Martin Space Systems is assembling and testing the InSight spacecraft in a clean room facility near Denver. "Our team resumed system-level integration and test activities last month," said Stu Spath, spacecraft program manager at Lockheed Martin. "The lander is completed and instruments have been integrated onto it so that we can complete the final spacecraft testing including acoustics, instrument deployments and thermal balance tests."

InSight is the first mission to focus on examining the deep interior of Mars. Information gathered will boost understanding of how all rocky planets formed, including Earth.

More: https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=6934

[ApophisAstros]

How amazing it was to watch the landing almost live as it happened , the two Marco satelites worked really well to relay the stages as they happened.
Roger

[Rick]

What's the scoop with Mars InSight's mired mole? It's digging again, thanks to trowel trickery

There was good news for Martian miners this week as NASA's stuck mole began making progress into the red planet's soil once more.

The multinational instrument, a key part of the payload of NASA's InSight spacecraft, had been stuck at the 30cm mark out of a hoped-for 5m after hammering began in February. Boffins used the lander's robot arm to lift the mole's support structure to give InSights' cameras a better look and discovered to their horror that the burrowing device was merely bouncing around in its hole.

More: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/10/18/nasa_insight_mole_moving/

[Rick]

Done and dusted: NASA's Mars InSight probe now filthier than the grubbiest PC

Recent photos from NASA's Mars InSight lander demonstrate that even the Register readers' filthiest PCs cannot compare to the effects of Martian dust.

Although consequences of poor PC hygiene can result in blocked fans, overheating silicon, and even the odd dried animal corpse, a build-up of dust on spacecraft solar panels can cause a permanent cessation of activity on the surface of the Red Planet.

Case in point – Mars InSight.

The lander went quiet in January as it dropped into safe mode during a dust storm which reduced the sunlight reaching its solar panels. It has since clawed its way back to a semblance of normal operations as the storm settled but... well... just look at it.

More: https://www.theregister.com/2022/02/10/dusty_insight/

[Hugh]

Wow! Yes, does need a trip down to the Lander Wash!

Let's hope for a passing dust devil

Hugh

[Rick]

NASA's InSight doomed as Mars dust coats solar panels

The Martian InSight lander will no longer be able to function within months as dust continues to pile up on its solar panels, starving it of energy, NASA reported on Tuesday.

When it just landed on Mars, its solar panels were able to produce 5,000 watt-hours every Martian sol, apparently equivalent to powering an electric oven for an hour and 40 minutes. But now it's only generating about a tenth of that.

Its energy levels have dropped, and are dropping, because Martian dirt is gather on and blocking its solar panels, and the hours of sunlight are dwindling as winter approaches the lander.

More: https://www.theregister.com/2022/05/18/insight_mars_nasa/

[Carole]

When they send these vehicles up, is there no way they can fit solar panel "wipers" that can be used BEFORE the panels gets so clogged up that they can't power them?

[Rick]

I guess it all adds weight and complexity, and for the main mission it's not considered necessary. They have tried a few tricks to get some of the dust off, but now they've got to the point where they're crossing their fingers and hoping a whirlwind will blow past... :/

[Rick]

Origins of mysterious marsquake settled: it was a meteoroid what done it

Data collected from two Mars missions has been combined to explain why the red planet shook on Christmas Eve 2021.

NASA's InSight Lander felt the ground shake on that day. Scientists have since learned more about the event thanks to images from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), which spotted a previously unobserved hole in the red planet two and a half months after the lander felt the rumble.

More: https://www.theregister.com/2022/10/28/marsquake_theory/

[Rick]

Nasa space probes document big impacts on Mars

Space probes have witnessed a big impact crater being formed on Mars - the largest in the Solar System ever caught in the act of excavation.

A van-sized object dug out a 150m-wide bowl on the Red Planet, hurling debris up to 35km (19 miles) away.

In more familiar terms, that's a crater roughly one-and-a-half times the size of London's Trafalgar Square.

And its blast zone would fit neatly in the area inside the UK capital's orbital motorway, the M25.

Scientists detected the event using the seismometer on the US space agency's InSight lander. The probe picked up the ground vibrations.

More: https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-63418056

[Rick]

InSight Mars lander has only 'few weeks' of power left

The Mars InSight lander is preparing to drift off to an eternal slumber beneath a blanket of solar-panel-obscuring Martian dust, as its power is set to run out within the next few weeks.

NASA announced the stationary Martian science lab's unfortunate end on Tuesday, saying dust storms that have gradually covered the craft's solar panels over its three years on the Martian surface, capped off by a dusting earlier this year that left the spacecraft with little power to carry out its objectives.

More: https://www.theregister.com/2022/11/02/insight_mars_nasa_shutdown/