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InSight

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Template:Infobox spacecraft InSight is a Mars lander mission planned for launch in 2016.[1] The name stands for Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport.[2]

Its mission is to place a stationary lander equipped with a seismometer and heat flow probe on the surface of Mars to study its early geological evolution. This would bring new understanding of the Solar System’s terrestrial planets — Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars — and Earth’s moon. It is a low-risk, low-cost mission with significant science implications across disciplines.

InSight was initially known as GEMS (Geophysical Monitoring Station), but changed its name in early 2012 at the request of NASA.[3] Out of 28 proposals from 2010,[4] it was one of the three Discovery Program finalists receiving US$3 million in May 2011 to develop a detailed concept study.[5] InSight was selected for launch on August 2012.[1] Managed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) with participation from scientists around the world, the mission is be cost-capped at US$425 million, not including launch vehicle funding.[6]

Design

The mission further develops design heritage from Phoenix Mars Lander.[7] Because InSight is planned to be powered by a photovoltaic system, it would land near the equator to enable a projected lifetime of 2 years (or 1 Mars year).[2]

Payload

InSight's science payload would consist of two main instruments:

  • The Heat Flow and Physical Properties Package (HP3) instrument, provided by the German Space Agency (DLR), is a heat flow probe that will hammer 5 metres (16 ft) into the Martian subsurface, deeper than all previous arms, scoops, drills and probes, to learn how much heat is coming from Mars' core and reveal the planet's thermal history. It has been nicknamed "the Tractor Mole".[9]
  • Also, Rotation and Interior Structure Experiment (RISE) would use the spacecraft's communication system to provide precise measurements of planetary rotation to better understand how Mars is built.

InSight will incorporate a camera mounted on the arm of the lander that will serve to capture black and white images of the instruments on the lander's deck and a 3-D view of the ground where the seismometer and heat flow probe will be placed. It will then be used to help engineers and scientists guide the deployment of the instruments to the ground. With a 45-degree field of view, the camera will also provide a panoramic view of the terrain surrounding the landing site.[10] A second similar camera, with a wide-angle 120-degree field of view lens will be mounted under the edge of the lander's deck and will provide a complementary view of the instrument deployment area.[10]

Team and participation

The InSight team includes scientists and engineers from multiple disciplines, countries and organizations. The science team includes co-investigators from the U.S., France, Germany, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Japan, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.

Mars Exploration Rover project scientist Bruce Banerdt, a planetary geophysicist with a career-long interest in the processes that change the surfaces of planets,[11] is the principal investigator for the InSight mission and the lead for the SEIS instrument. Suzanne Smrekar, whose research focuses on the thermal evolution of planets and who has done extensive testing and development on instruments designed to measure the thermal properties and heat flow on other planets,[12] is the lead for InSight's HP3 instrument. Sami Asmar, an expert in advanced studies using radio waves,[13] is the lead for InSight's RISE investigation. The InSight mission team also includes project manager Tom Hoffman and deputy project manager Henry Stone.[14]

Objectives

Terrestrial Planet Interiors (Earth, Mars and Moon) - Artist's Concept

InSight will place a single stationary lander on Mars to study its deep interior and address a fundamental issue of planetary and solar system science: understanding the processes that shaped the rocky planets of the inner solar system (including Earth) more than four billion years ago.[15]

InSight’s primary objective is to study the earliest evolutionary history of of the processes that shaped Mars. By studying the size, thickness, density and overall structure of Mars' core, mantle and crust, as well as the rate at which heat escapes from the planet's interior, InSight will provide a glimpse into the evolutionary processes of all of the rocky planets in the inner solar system.[15] The rocky inner planets share a common ancestry that begins with a process called accretion. As the body increases in size, its interior heats up and evolves to become a terrestrial planet, containing a core, mantle and crust.[16] Despite this common ancestry, each of the terrestrial planets is later shaped and molded through a poorly understood process called differentiation. It is the InSight mission's goal to improve understanding of this process and, by extension, terrestrial evolution, by measuring the planetary building blocks shaped by differentiation: a terrestrial planet's core, mantle and crust.

The mission will determine if there is any seismic activity, the amount of heat flow from the interior, the size of Mars core and whether the core is liquid or solid.[17] The mission's secondary objective is to conduct an in-depth study of geophysics, tectonic activity and meteorite impacts on Mars, which could provide knowledge about such processes on Earth.

In terms of fundamental processes shaping planetary formation, Mars contains the most in-depth and accurate historical record, because it is big enough to have undergone the earliest accretion and internal heating processes that shaped the terrestrial planets, but small enough to have retained the signature of those processes.[15]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b NASA will send robot drill to Mars in 2016, Washington Post, By Brian Vastag, Monday, August 20
  2. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference overview was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ JPL changes name of Mars mission proposal - Glendale NewsPress
  4. ^ NASA/JPL - New NASA Mission To take First Look Deep Inside Mars
  5. ^ "NASA Selects Investigations For Future Key Planetary Mission". NASA. Retrieved 6 May 2011.
  6. ^ "NASA picks project shortlist for next Discovery mission". TG Daily. 9 May 2011. Retrieved 2011-05-20. {{cite news}}: |first= missing |last= (help)
  7. ^ NASA -New Insight on Mars Expected From new NASA Mission (2012)
  8. ^ Francis, Matthew (21 August 2012). "New probe to provide InSight into Mars' interior". Ars Technica. Retrieved 21 August 2012. {{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  9. ^ "Mars Exploration Program- New Insight on Mars Expected From New NASA Mission". NASA - JPL. 2012. Retrieved 2012-08-23.
  10. ^ a b "InSight - Technology". NASA - JPL. 2012. Retrieved 2012-08-20.
  11. ^ "JPL Science: People - Bruce Banerdt". Website. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
  12. ^ "JPL Sciences: People - Sue Smrekar". Website. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Retrieved 2 December 2011.
  13. ^ "JPL Science and Technology: Sami Asmar". Website. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
  14. ^ "InSight: People". Mission Website. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Retrieved 2 December 2011.
  15. ^ a b c "InSight: Mission". Mission Website. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Retrieved 2 December 2011.
  16. ^ "InSight: Science". Mission Website. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Retrieved 2 December 2011.
  17. ^ Kremer, Ken (March 2, 2012). "NASAs Proposed 'InSight' Lander would Peer to the Center of Mars in 2016". Universe Today. Retrieved 2012-03-27.
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