NASA’s InSight, short for Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigators, Geodesy and Heat Transport, spacecraft is on its six-month, 300-million-mile voyage to the Red Planet. It is the first interplanetary mission to launch from the Vandenberg Air Force Base, California and also the first to study the Mars’ interior.
The InSight lander was launched successfully on May 5, 2018, at 4:05 a.m. PDT onboard a United Launch Alliance (a joint venture of Lockheed Martin Space Systems and Boeing) Atlas-V rocket from Space Launch Complex 3 at Vandenberg Air Force Base, California. InSight will look deep beneath the Martian surface to study the Red Planet’s interior by measuring its heat output and listen for marsquakes. InSight will develop a map of the planet’s deep interior utilizing the seismic waves generated by marsquakes.
Not just Mars, it will also help scientists understand the formation and early evolution of all rocky planets, including Earth.
“With its successful launch, NASA’s InSight team now is focusing on the six-month voyage,” said JPL (Jet Propulsion Laboratory). Engineers at NASA and its Jet Propulsion Laboratory, during InSight’s cruise phase, will check out the spacecraft’s subsystems and science instruments. They will make sure that its solar arrays and antenna are oriented properly and also track spacecraft’s trajectory and perform maneuvers to keep it on course.
It is scheduled to land on the Mars around 3 p.m. EST on November 26. It will conduct science operations until November 24, 2020- that’s almost two Earth years and one year and 40 days on the Red Planet.
Alongside the InSight lander, the rocket also carried NASA’s first deep-space CubeSats called MarCO (Mars Cube One), a pair of briefcase-sized spacecraft that are on their own separate mission to Mars. The CubeSats are flying on their own paths following the lander on its cruise to Mars, testing out miniature spacecraft technology along the way. It’s NASA’s technology experiment and if they survive the radiation of space and function as planned, they’ll fly over the Red Planet during InSight’s entry, descent, and landing in November.
The CubeSats headed to Mars are alive and well, confirmed NASA. “Both MarCO-A and B say ‘Polo!’ It’s a sign that the little sats are alive and well,” said Andy Klesh, chief engineer for the MarCO mission at NASA’s JPL in Pasadena, California. They were designed and built by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, and are the first test of CubeSat technology in deep space. Their purpose is to test new comms and navigation capabilities for future missions.
The InSight lander is equipped with three primary instruments: SEIS (Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure), HP3 (Heat Flow and Physical Properties Package), and RISE (Rotation and Interior Structure Experiment). The SEIS or Seismometer measures the vibrations caused by the internal activity of Mars to illuminate the properties of the crust, mantle, and core while the HP3 or the heat probe provided by German Space Agency will measure heat flowing out of the deep interior of the planet. The RISE to provide precise measurements of planetary rotation using spacecraft’s communication system. It will track Mars’ rotational wobble to reveal the size and composition of planet’s metallic core.
The InSight lander will land on a broad, smooth plain close to the Red Planet’s equator known as Elysium Planitia which is around 373 miles (600km) away from the 2012 landing site of Curiosity Mars rover.
“This has been years of work by a whole host of people, for a very long time, including JPL, and of course the launch crew at Vandenberg,” said NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine.