NASA’s upcoming Mars exploration mission, InSight, is set to be deployed on Saturday, May 5th, and it marks a groundbreaking mission, namely, the examination of the Mars underground, for the first time ever.
The launch itself will also register a “world’s first”, as it will be the first inter-planetary mission to be deployed from the US West Coast. Insight mission is planned to deploy at 12.05 GMT from the Space Launch Complex-3 of the Vandenberg Air Force Base, located in California. The Mars Insight mission will be launched by a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket, as reported by NASA.
InSight (Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport) will help scientists better understand the formation of rocky planets
InSight, the world’ s first mission to probe the interior of the Red Planet by studying Mars’ thermal output and monitoring the seismic activity of the planet. The mission will be based on monitoring seismic ripples produced by seisms of Mars, the so-called ‘marsquakes’, and has the ultimate purpose to build a complete chart of the Red Planet’s depths.
The consequent findings on the formation of Mars will assist scientists to comprehend more clearly and accurately the formation of the rocky planets in the Universe, such as the Earth.
InSight mission will also incorporate TWINS, a Spanish weather observation system
Onboard scientific equipment also incorporates TWINS, a Spanish weather observation system whose building, configuration and functioning are controlled by the Astrobiology Centre of INTA, and which will be able to continuously observe the weather conditions on Mars for the next two years after landing.
Besides, onboard the same space shuttle will be a separated NASA experimental project called Mars Cube One (MarCO), which combines two small spaceships and has the mission to experiment the first deep space deployment of a CubeSat.
CubeSats are engineered to provide better communicational and navigational support for upcoming missions, therefore, MarCO, if successful, will assist with InSight communications with the Earth.
The InSight mission to Mars will launch on May 5th, 2018, at 12:05 GMT from the Vandenberg Air Force Base, in California, and will have the mission to examine, for the first time ever, the depth of the Red Planet.
