The first visit to JPL got me thinking about the impressive discoveries that NASA did. I can't even imagine that it is possible to build these spacecrafts that travel beyond Earth, enter a space and land on a different planet. I learnt that Mars is similar to Earth and it has craters, domes, and rocks on its surface. Still, we have very little information about Mars. While finding a safe site for space crafts to land on Mars, scientists have been preparing InSight, which is a NASA discovery program mission. This mission will place a lander on Mars to study its interior that will enable us to understand the process of terrestrial planet formation in our solar system. With geophysical instruments, Insight Mars Lander can "measure the planet's 'vital signs': its 'pulse' (seismoloy), 'temperature' (heat flow probe), and 'reflexes' (precision tracking)." InSight is short for Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy, and Heat Transport. It is built to explore the process that shaped Mars and rocky planets. This spacecraft is built and tested in Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver.
This spacecraft will launch during March 4 to March 30, 2016 and land on Mars on September 28, 2016. The figure below shows Artist's Concept of InSight Lander on Mars with labeled features.
Information about each feature can be found at:
http://www.nasa.gov/jpl/pia19811/artists-concept-of-insight-lander-on-mars-annotated
A model of InSight that we saw
An actual InSight
No comments:
Post a Comment