NASA engineers have begun testing a car-sized Mars lander, dubbed InSight, scheduled to launch in 2016.
This artist’s rendition shows the InSight Mars lander spacecraft on the Red Planet. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech.
InSight (Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport) is a NASA Discovery Program mission that will send a lander to the Red Planet, which will delve deeper into the planet’s surface than any other spacecraft.
Previous missions to Mars have investigated the surface history of the planet by examining features like canyons, volcanoes, rocks and soil, but no one has attempted to investigate the planet’s earliest evolution – its building blocks – which can only be found by looking far below the surface.
The InSight mission will seek to understand the evolutionary formation of rocky planets, including Earth, by investigating the interior structure and processes of Mars.
The mission will also investigate the dynamics of Martian tectonic activity and meteorite impacts, which could offer clues about such phenomena on Earth.
The InSight lander is about the size of a car and will be equipped with science instruments that will conduct the first ‘check-up’ of Mars in more than 4.5 billion years.
The science payload is comprised of two instruments: the Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure (SEIS) and the Heat Flow and Physical Properties Package (HP3). In addition, the Rotation and Interior Structure Experiment (RISE) will use the spacecraft communication system to provide precise measurements of planetary rotation.
The current testing will help ensure the 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.
The technical capabilities and knowledge gained from the InSight, and other Mars missions, are crucial to NASA’s journey to Mars, which includes sending astronauts to the Red Planet in the 2030s.
“Today, our robotic scientific explorers are paving the way, making great progress on the journey to Mars. Together, humans and robotics will pioneer Mars and the Solar System,” said Dr Jim Green of NASA’s Planetary Science Division at the agency’s headquarters in Washington.
The solar arrays on the InSight Mars lander are deployed in this test inside a clean room at Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver. This configuration is how the spacecraft will look on the surface of the Red Planet. Image Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / Lockheed Martin.
During the environmental testing phase at Lockheed Martin’s Space Systems facility near Denver, the lander will be exposed to extreme temperatures, vacuum conditions of nearly zero air pressure simulating interplanetary space, and a battery of other tests over the next seven months.
The first will be a thermal vacuum test in the spacecraft’s ‘cruise’ configuration, which will be used during its seven-month journey to Mars.
Other tests include vibrations simulating launch and checking for electronic interference between different parts of the spacecraft.
The testing phase concludes with a second thermal vacuum test in which the spacecraft is exposed to the temperatures and atmospheric pressures it will experience as it operates on the Martian surface.
