It appears that NASA is quick on its toes with planning and delivering its envisioned mission to Mars. Even if it was only recent that they announced their plans to have manned missions leaving for the Red Planet by the year 2030 the very latest, preparations are already on the way. And while funding the mission, calculating the best time for the mission, building the necessary space craft, gathering the resources necessary and so on are the very basic steps of such a mission alone, preparation entails a little more than that.
In order to send human beings to the surface of the much sought after red planet, humanity must rely on the capabilities of landers and probes that will perform detailed surveys of landing sites, climate conditions, geological information and other facts such as these. One of such landers is NASA’s InSight Mars Lander that is preparing to be sent out by May 2018.
Originally, the InSight Mars Lander was scheduled to be launched from the surface of Earth and sent towards its trek to the red planet this year – next month, in fact – but certain technical issues prevented it from doing so and postponed the mission by a considerable amount of time. To be more exact, a vacuum leak in its prime science instrument convinced NASA to postpone the mission, with scientists having the certainty that they will be able to rework the seismometer’s system and have it finished by 2017.
After that, preparations will once again begin until May 5th, when the launch is believed to be possible. If everything goes according to plan and the lander is successfully launched into outer space on the calculated date, it should arrive on Martial surface by November 26th, 2018, six months and three weeks after its departure.
InSight stands for Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations Geodesy and Heat Transport and is specialized in understanding how planets’ geology formed while also collecting seismology and climate data from both above and below Mars’ surface.
NASA’s InSight is not the only spacecraft planning to depart and study the workings of the currently inhabitable Mars. However, the craft has an entire team made of researchers and engineers from across the globe, uniting their efforts to ensure humanity delivers some of its representatives to the red planet as the next step in our long-term exploratory mission.
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