[meteorite-list] New NASA Mission to Take First Look Deep Inside Mars (InSight)

[Ron Baalke]

Aug. 20, 2012

Dwayne Brown 
Headquarters, Washington                                    
202-358-1726 
dwayne.c.brown at nasa.gov 

RELEASE: 12-288

NEW NASA MISSION TO TAKE FIRST LOOK DEEP INSIDE MARS

WASHINGTON -- NASA has selected a new mission, set to launch in 2016, 
that will take the first look into the deep interior of Mars to see 
why the Red Planet evolved so differently from Earth as one of our 
solar system's rocky planets. 

The new mission, named InSight, will place instruments on the Martian 
surface to investigate whether the core of Mars is solid or liquid 
like Earth's and why Mars' crust is not divided into tectonic plates 
that drift like Earth's. Detailed knowledge of the interior of Mars 
in comparison to Earth will help scientists understand better how 
terrestrial planets form and evolve. 

"The exploration of Mars is a top priority for NASA, and the selection 
of InSight ensures we will continue to unlock the mysteries of the 
Red Planet and lay the groundwork for a future human mission there," 
NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said. "The recent successful 
landing of the Curiosity rover has galvanized public interest in 
space exploration and today's announcement makes clear there are more 
exciting Mars missions to come." 

InSight will be led by W. Bruce Banerdt at NASA's Jet Propulsion 
Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif. InSight's science team includes 
U.S. and international co-investigators from universities, industry 
and government agencies. The French space agency Centre National 
d'Etudes Spatiales, or CNES, and the German Aerospace Center, or DLR, 
are contributing instruments to InSight, which is scheduled to land 
on Mars in September 2016 to begin its two-year scientific mission. 

InSight is the 12th selection in NASA's series of Discovery-class 
missions. Created in 1992, the Discovery Program sponsors frequent, 
cost-capped solar system exploration missions with highly focused 
scientific goals. NASA requested Discovery mission proposals in June 
2010 and received 28. InSight was one of three proposed missions 
selected in May 2011 for funding to conduct preliminary design 
studies and analyses. The other two proposals were for missions to a 
comet and Saturn's moon Titan. 

InSight builds on spacecraft technology used in NASA's highly 
successful Phoenix lander mission, which was launched to the Red 
Planet in 2007 and determined water existed near the surface in the 
Martian polar regions. By incorporating proven systems in the 
mission, the InSight team demonstrated that the mission concept was 
low-risk and could stay within the cost-constrained budget of 
Discovery missions. The cost of the mission, excluding the launch 
vehicle and related services, is capped at $425 million in 2010 
dollars. 

"Our Discovery Program enables scientists to use innovative approaches 
to answering fundamental questions about our solar system in the 
lowest cost mission category," said John Grunsfeld, associate 
administrator for the Science Mission Directorate at NASA 
Headquarters. "InSight will get to the 'core' of the nature of the 
interior and structure of Mars, well below the observations we've 
been able to make from orbit or the surface." 

InSight will carry four instruments. JPL will provide an onboard 
geodetic instrument to determine the planet's rotation axis and a 
robotic arm and two cameras used to deploy and monitor instruments on 
the Martian surface. CNES is leading an international consortium that 
is building an instrument to measure seismic waves traveling through 
the planet's interior. The German Aerospace Center is building a 
subsurface heat probe to measure the flow of heat from the interior. 

NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., manages the 
Discovery Program for the agency's Science Mission Directorate in 
Washington. 

For more information about the Discovery Program, visit: 

http://discovery.nasa.gov 

For information about NASA and agency programs, visit: 

http://www.nasa.gov 
	
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