Artistic concept of InSight Mars Lander Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech Lockheed Martin has started the assembly, test and launch ope...
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Artistic concept of InSight Mars Lander
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech |
Lockheed Martin has started the assembly, test and launch operations (ATLO) phase for NASA’s InSight Mars lander spacecraft, which is scheduled to be launched in March 2016.
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 stands for “Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport” and it is more than a Mars mission.
A critical stage in the program, ATLO is when assembly of the spacecraft starts, moves through environmental testing and concludes with its launch. Over the next six months, technicians will install subsystems such as avionics, power, telecomm, mechanisms, thermal systems, and guidance, navigation and control. Science instruments will also be delivered by the mission partners to Lockheed Martin for integration with the spacecraft.
The InSight mission is led by Bruce Banerdt of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). The science team includes U.S. and international co-investigators from universities, industry and government agencies. The German Aerospace Center (DLR) and the French space agency (CNES) are also each contributing an instrument to the two-year scientific mission.
Physically, InSight looks very much like the Phoenix lander, but most of the electronic components are similar to what is currently flying on the MAVEN spacecraft. In addition to the lander, the spacecraft’s protective aeroshell capsule and cruise stage (which provides communications and power during the journey to Mars) are also undergoing assembly and testing alongside the lander. Once the spacecraft has been fully assembled, it will undergo rigorous environmental testing in the summer of 2015.
Along with providing an onboard geodetic instrument to determine the planet’s rotation axis, plus a robotic arm and two cameras used to deploy and monitor instruments on the Martian surface, JPL performs project management for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, manages the overall Discovery Program for the agency’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington.
To investigate the planet's interior, the stationary lander will carry a robotic arm that will deploy surface and burrowing instruments contributed by France and Germany. The national space agencies of France and Germany -- Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales (CNES) and Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt (DLR), respectively -- are partnering with NASA by providing InSight's two main science instruments.
The Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure (SEIS) will be built by CNES in partnership with DLR and the space agencies of Switzerland and the United Kingdom. It will measure waves of ground motion carried through the interior of the planet, from "marsquakes" and meteor impacts. The Heat Flow and Physical Properties Package, from DLR, will measure heat coming toward the surface from the planet's interior.
