Fate of NASA’s InSight Mars mission

[Waspie_Dwarf]

Fate of NASA’s InSight Mars mission to be decided soon

NASA is close to deciding whether to spend an extra $150 million to send the InSight lander to Mars in 2018 or cancel the mission after an instrument problem made the spacecraft miss a launch opportunity this year, with a verdict on the project’s future expected within weeks, officials said.

Originally intended to launch this week, the InSight mission is designed to probe the interior of Mars and detect seismic tremors after touching down in Elysium Planitia, a relatively flat, smooth plain near the Martian equator.

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[Merc14]

They've already spent $525M and the mission was deemed important enough to take precedence over two other proposed missions so I hope they come up with te extra dollars.

[Waspie_Dwarf]

They've already spent $525M and the mission was deemed important enough to take precedence over two other proposed missions so I hope they come up with te extra dollars.

Just about every unmanned mission NASA has ever launched has won a competition over other missions. It is a huge simplification to claim that was because they were deemed more important as there are many criteria for mission selection, not the least of these being cost.

One of the major selling points of InSight was that it could be produced relatively cheaply by using a lander heavily based on that used in the Mars Phoenix Lander mission.

The problem is, as the article says, that to carry on with InSight will likely mean the cancellation of one of the next two Discovery missions... are they any less important?

NASA is highly likely to lose a mission, the question they are trying to answer is which one.

[Waspie_Dwarf]

NASA Targets May 2018 Launch of Mars InSight Mission

NASA’s Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport (InSight) mission to study the deep interior of Mars is targeting a new launch window that begins May 5, 2018, with a Mars landing scheduled for Nov. 26, 2018.

InSight’s primary goal is to help us understand how rocky planets – including Earth – formed and evolved. The spacecraft had been on track to launch this month until a vacuum leak in its prime science instrument prompted NASA in December to suspend preparations for launch.

InSight project managers recently briefed officials at NASA and France's space agency, Centre National d'Études Spatiales (CNES), on a path forward; the proposed plan to redesign the science instrument was accepted in support of a 2018 launch.

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[Merc14]

I'm glad they have decided to continue funding and hopefully no other missions will have to be sacrificed.

[toast]

Good news!

[Waspie_Dwarf]

hopefully no other missions will have to be sacrificed.

The money has to come from somewhere.

We'll see when the next Discovery mission/missions are announced. If there is only one then this delay and extra cost will have lost NASA a mission.

[Doc Socks Junior]

I'm glad they decided to go along with it. It might just be the geophysics talking, but I'm glad we're finally going to get some deep interior data (seismic and heat flow constraints) on something outside of the Earth and Moon.