February 2018 - Looking Deep: The InSight Mission to Mars

Looking Deep: The InSight Mission to Mars

February 22 & 23

The InSight mission, scheduled to launch in May, 2018, will be the first NASA mission to observe the deep interior of Mars. Mars, Earth, Venus, and Mercury are as similar as they are different, and the view granted by our human and robotic eyes only scratches the surface. By sending instruments that can teach us about the interior of Mars, we learn about the history and evolution of all these familiar planets. The instruments InSight will bring to Elysium Planitia are conceptually simple, yet also sensitive, delicate, and complex. The spacecraft itself uses proven hardware from previous missions to Mars’ surface, but also features new activities crucial to the success of InSight science.

Come dig deep into the workings of Earth’s next trip to the Red Planet. InSight (Interior Exploration Using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy, and Heat Transport) is a mission in NASA’s Discovery Program. It is led by Principal Investigator, Dr. Bruce Banerdt, and is managed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). InSight is a collaborative partnership of NASA, Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Cetre National d’Etudes Spatiales (CNES) of France, and the Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt (DLR).

Speaker(s):
Troy Lee Hudson
Technologist, at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Instrument Systems Engineer for the InSight mission Heat-Flow and Physical Properties Package (HP3).