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scientificamerican.com

NASA's Next Mars Lander Zooms

toward Launch
Leonard David
8-10 minutos

LITTLETON, Colo.After expensive delays, NASAs next mission

to Mars is on track to embark next year. As spacecraft names go,
this one is a mouthful: Interior Exploration using Seismic
Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport. At NASA, and here at
Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company, which built the craft, its
just called InSight.

Designed to probe the planets deep interior and to eavesdrop on

rumbling Marsquakes, the InSight lander will effectively take the
planets temperature and measure its pulse. Now in final
preparations on its path to the launchpad, the spacecraft is
undergoing extensive thermal and vacuum testing and attended by
a swarm of bunny suitclad technicians. (The suits should help
prevent microbial hitchhikers from catching a free ride to Mars
when InSight lifts off.)

That launch could come as soon as May 5, 2018, according to

Scott Daniels, manager of the assembly, test and launch operations
phase for InSight at Lockheed Martin. The spacecraft is on target
for transport in late February next year to Californias Vandenberg
Air Force Base, where it will be mated with a rocket and prepared

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for launch. Because we have an interplanetary launch window, its

vital that we stay on schedule, Daniels says. The more [InSight]
gets handled, the more likely something might go wrong. So one of
my primary jobs is to make sure we get InSight off the planet as
soon as possible and onto its November 26 landing on Mars.
Technicians prepare NASAs Insight Mars lander for the final round of
testing at Lockheed Martin Space Systems Co. in Colorado prior to next
years Red Planet sendoff from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.
Credit: Barbara David

Back from the Brink

The race to get InSight to Mars is really dj vu all over again.

In December 2015 NASA announced it had suspended the

spacecrafts planned 2016 launch. With InSight then already at
Vandenberg, the no-go decision resulted from a flaw in one of the
spacecrafts key instruments, a seismometer called SEIS (for
Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure) provided by Frances
space agency, the National Center of Space Research (CNES).
SEIS is critical to InSights science mission; it gauges ground
movements as small as the diameter of an atom but requires a
vacuum seal around its three main sensors to endure the ruthless
extremes of the Martian environment. During testing, the instrument
failed to hold a vacuum; somewhere, somehow, it was leaking.

It was a nerve-wracking time, recalls Bruce Banerdt, InSight

principal investigator at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Ultimately, a full-court press from experts at CNES and JPL fixed
the leak, and the seismometer passed a crucial review last August.
Now, Banerdt says, were on schedule. We have margin. And there
are no major issues that we are working on. Im feeling good. Its

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doubly real now, I guess.

The launch delay and SEIS repairs ballooned InSights total

estimated cost to about $800 million, with the missions foreign
partners spending over $175 million tackling instrument challenges
alone. I think CNES told me it was the most expensive non-Earth
project theyve ever undertaken, Banerdt says. It didnt start out
that way, but they stepped up and put in the resources to make
things right. NASA doubled down as well, taking a hard look at
InSights groundbreaking science goals and the investment already
sunk before approving about $130 million of additional funds to
make the Mars lander mission happen, Banerdt says.
Close-up view of the Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure (SEIS), a
seismometer provided by Frances Centre National d'tudes Spatiales
(CNES). Getting this delicate, precision instrument on track for flight
caused InSights launch to be delayed from 2016 to next year. Credit:
Barbara David

Going Deep

The reason InSight survived at all, rather than being canceled,

might be that its inquiries encompass all the rocky planets of the
inner solar system. Studying the depths of Mars, it turns out, can
help researchers piece together the processes that assembled all
the terrestrial worlds more than four billion years ago.

Insight addresses a fundamental area of Mars science

geophysicsstudying the interior of what we believe is an active
planet, revealing its present state and clues to its past, says Jim
Green, NASAs Planetary Science Division director. Until now
geophysicists have really only studied one active terrestrial planet
up closeEarth. Adding data from a second could lead to

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exponential boosts in scientists understanding of rocky worlds in

general.

Furthermore, Green points out, whereas InSight has no direct

connection with NASAs nascent plans to eventually land humans
on Mars, its mission does complement these plans quite well.
Before humans live and work on Mars, InSight will tell us about the
severity of Marsquakes that may or may not have to be taken into
account in the building of permanent structures, he says.

According to Stuart Spath, Lockheed Martins InSight program

manager, the landers data could also dovetail nicely with another
top NASA priority: appraising future samples retrieved from Mars
and hauled back to Earth. Knowing more about the warmth of
Marss interior can guide judgments about whatever scientists see
when they analyze returned specimens drawn from the subsurface,
he says. [InSights mission] will be the first time weve peered
inside the planet. Thats all new science, Spath says. Directly or
indirectly, the more we do at Mars, the more well pave the
pathway to eventual human exploration.
Artwork depicting the InSight Mars lander and its external instruments
deployed on the Red Planet. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

On a (Robotic) Limb

To accomplish all this, InSights science payload includes two key

instruments: Frances SEIS and the Heat Flow and Physical
Properties Package (HP3), provided by the German Aerospace
Center.

As always, theres a long list of calamities that can befall any

legged lander attempting to get up close and personal with Mars.

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Assuming InSight survives its landing, many of the most worrisome

remaining risks revolve around the spacecrafts robotic arm, which
must plop both SEIS and HP3 down on the rugged Martian terrain.
After deploying SEIS, this remote-controlled limb must also crown
the seismometer with a beanie caplike shield to protect against
winds and weather that could scuttle the instruments atomically
precise readings.

The HP3, for its part, will measure the heat flux from Mars. Once it
is deployed, it will burrow five meters into the Martian subsurface
deeper than any robotic arm, scoop, drill or probe has ever gone
beforeto seek out just how much heat the planet still harbors
billions of years after its formation. That information could also help
mission planners determine how best to tap into geothermal energy
for future human outposts.

Even in the unlikely event the robotic arm malfunctions, the lander
itself would still deliver novel science once on Mars, Banerdt says.
Insight also totes top-notch equipment to study the planets
weather, and its onboard magnetometer can reveal how cosmic
rays and charged particles from the solar wind propagate through
the atmosphere to scour the planets surfaceall useful information
for scouting sites for potential future habitats.

For Banerdt,it has been a long trip on Earth just getting ready to go
to Mars and touch down at Elysium Planitia, a relatively flat and
innocuous piece of the planets equatorial real estate. It feels good
now to be on a normal stressful projectKnot like desperate stress.
For the first time we arent coming from behind, he concludes. To
be able to throw something across the solar system and have it
land safely on another planet, its just awesome.

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Leonard David
Leonard David is author of "Mars: Our Future on the Red Planet,"
published by National Geographic. The book is a companion to the
National Geographic Channel series "Mars." A longtime writer for
Space.com, David has been reporting on the space industry for
more than five decades.

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