NASA Insight 2016 mission (updates)

[Draggendrop Veteran]

I thought that it might be an idea to also start this thread, along side the ExoMars thread, as both missions overlap and have some interesting aspects.

What is "Insight".......

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InSight is a robotic Mars lander planned for launch in March 2016.^[2] The name is a backronym for Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport.^[1]

The mission's objective is to place a stationary lander equipped with a seismometer and heat transfer probe on the surface of Mars to study its early geological evolution. This would bring new understanding of the Solar System'sterrestrial planets — Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars — and Earth’s Moon. By reusing technology from the MarsPhoenix lander, which successfully landed on Mars in 2008, it is expected that the cost and risk will be reduced.^[1]

InSight was initially known as GEMS (Geophysical Monitoring Station), but its name was changed in early 2012 at the request of NASA.^[7] Out of 28 proposals from 2010,^[8] it was one of the three Discovery Program finalists receiving US$3 million in May 2011 to develop a detailed concept study.^[9] In August 2012, InSight was selected for development and launch.^[2] Managed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) with participation from scientists from several countries, the mission is cost-capped at US$425 million, not including launch vehicle funding.^[10] On 19 May 2014, NASA announced that construction of the lander began.^[11] Later, on 27 May 2015, NASA announced that testing of the lander began.^[12]

 

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Mission type	Mars lander
Operator	NASA / JPL
Website	insight.jpl.nasa.gov
Mission duration	2 years[1]
Spacecraft properties
Manufacturer	NASA / German Aerospace Centre /French Space Agency[2]
Landing mass	≈350 kg (770 lb)
Power	450 W, solar / Li-ion battery
Start of mission
Launch date	8–27 March 2016[3]
Rocket	Atlas V 401[4][5]
Launch site	Vandenberg Air Force Base[4] Lompoc, California, United States
Contractor	Lockheed Martin Space Systems
Mars lander
Landing date	September 20, 2016 (planned)
Landing site	Elysium Planitia, Mars[6] 3.0°N 154.7°E

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/InSight

 Insight home page
http://insight.jpl.nasa.gov/home.cfm

Nasa Insight page
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/insight/main/index.html

NASA begins testing InSight, next Mars lander, for 2016 mission

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NASA has had a remarkable record when it comes to successful missions on the Red Planet, dating back to 1976 with Viking 1 and 2, Pathfinder and Sojourner in 1997, the Spirit and Opportunity rovers in 2004, and Curiosity‘s crazy ‘7 minutes of terror’ landing in 2012. Each time, the spacecraft rovers are orders of magnitude more sophisticated, and two of the last three rovers are still doing science. Now NASA’s set to do it all over again come March 2016 with the InSight spacecraft, which will launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California and land on Mars roughly six months later.

Once on the surface, the mission is scheduled to last two years — 720 days, or 700 sols — and begin delivering science data in October 2016.

“Today, our robotic scientific explorers are paving the way, making great progress on the journey to Mars,” said Jim Green, director of NASA’s Planetary Science Division at the agency’s headquarters in Washington, in a statement. “Together, humans and robotics will pioneer Mars and the solar system.”

InSight will be as large as a car, and instead of looking for signs of life or studying surface rock composition, it’s directed at learning more about the interior of Mars. The name is an unwieldy acronym that reflects that: Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy, and Heat Transport. Currently, NASA has begun testing the craft’s ability to operate in and survive deep space travel, as well as the famously harsh conditions on the surface of the Red Planet.

 

 
Mars InSight lander, labeled (artist concept)

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The testing phase will last about seven months. During that time, NASA will expose the lander to extreme temperatures, vacuum-space conditions with near-zero air pressure, and emulated Martian surface conditions. Engineering teams will also simulate the launch procedure and examine different parts of the craft for electronic interference.

 

“The assembly of InSight went very well and now it’s time to see how it performs,” said Stu Spath, InSight program manager at Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, in the same statement. “The environmental testing regimen is designed to wring out any issues with the spacecraft so we can resolve them while it’s here on Earth. This phase takes nearly as long as assembly, but we want to make sure we deliver a vehicle to NASA that will perform as expected in extreme environments.”

Once testing is completed early next year, NASA will begin setting up the launch itself ahead of the March target date. “It’s great to see the spacecraft put together in its launch configuration,” said InSight Project Manager Tom Hoffman at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California. “Many teams from across the globe have worked long hours to get their elements of the system delivered for these tests. There still remains much work to do before we are ready for launch, but it is fantastic to get to this critical milestone.”

 http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/206905-nasa-begins-testing-insight-next-mars-lander-for-2016-mission

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NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Maneuvers For InSight

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NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter altered its course around the red planet this week, repositioning itself to prepare for its communications record and playback duties as the agency's InSight lander streaks through the Martian skies to a hoped for touchdown on Sept. 28, 2016.

The 75 second maneuver unfolded on July 29, advancing MRO's near polar orbit crossings of the Martian equator by about 30 minutes to 2:30 p.m., local solar mean time.

"This will put us in the right place at the right time," Dan Johnston, the MRO project manager, noted in a status update from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

As InSight plunges into the thin Martian atmosphere and descends, MRO will listen and record data from the lander for playback to Earth. It's a crucial mission role that MRO filled during the "7 minutes of terror" that marked the drama filled landing of NASA's Curiosity rover on Mars on Aug. 6, 2012 as well as for the Phoenix lander mission arrival in 2008.

While acting as a communications relay for those and other Mars missions, MRO has been an eager observer, furnishing scientists with a steady flow of high resolution photographs of the rugged red planet terrain since its own arrival in 2006.

 

 
InSight Lander in Lockheed Martin clean room. NASA photo

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InSight is undergoing preparations for liftoff during a Mar. 4-30, 2016  launch window, which will dictate the spacecraft's entry, descent and landing.

With a successful touchdown, the U.S. and European instrumented lander  will probe the Martian interior to learn more about its core, mantle and crust and  how the interior layering evolved. Those studies and observations of tectonics and meteoric impacts should advance scientists understanding of how Mars and the solar system's other rocky planets evolved.

As Insight pursues a  planned two year prime mission, MRO will maneuver again to resume its regular crossings of the Martian equator at 3 p.m. and 3 a.m., local solar time.

MRO will still have enough fuel to conduct normal maneuvering around Mars for another 19 years, according to JPL estimates.

 http://aviationweek.com/blog/nasas-mars-reconnaissance-orbiter-maneuvers-insight

Here are a few video's to display the process...

Mars InSight Cubesats: "MarCO First Interplanetary CubeSat Mission" 2015 NASA JPL
video is 1:15 min

 

 

Animation of InSight
video is 1:49 min

 

 

NASA Mars mission 2016: NASA tests new InSight lander to explore Mars’ interior

video is 0:53 min

 

Lot's more to come.....Later.......

Edited November 26, 2018 by Jason S.
thread title changed for accuracy

[Draggendrop Veteran]

//comment section...

Apparently, NASA has a "Release" planned for this Monday.....I have seen these rumours for a few hours now...appears legit...from one site...

found it......official now....
http://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-to-announce-mars-mystery-solved

The agency say they will detail a major science finding from the ongoing Mars explorations during a news briefing at 11:30 am EDT on Monday September 28, 2015, at the James Webb Auditorium in Washington.

The event will be broadcast live on NASA Television and the agency’s website.

News conference participants will be:

·         Jim Green, director of planetary science

·         Michael Meyer, lead scientist for the Mars Exploration Program

·         Lujendra Ojha of the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta

·         Mary Beth Wilhelm of NASA’s Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California and the Georgia Institute of Technology

·         Alfred McEwen, principal investigator for the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) at the University of Arizona in Tucson

A brief question-and-answer session will take place during the event with reporters on site and by phone. Members of the public also can ask questions during the briefing using #AskNASA.

 

Here is my guess.....origin of methane plumes....which is one of 5 scenario's

1) organic source

2) lots of water...reacting with mars minerals

3) Martian cows are source for methane found

4) They sent 7 rovers and found 10, 7 of Nasa's and 3 with a logo "SpaceX DragonWorks" 

5) Johnny 5 found and reassembled....

 

I choose (2), large water sources, the aquafers reacting with Mars geology, creating methane, that vents under temp/pressure.

If they choose 1), I'll say that NASA owes Carl Sagan an apology for being right about microbial life, 50 years ago..... 

[Draggendrop Veteran]

Nasa's next mission to Mars is GO: Radical lander could finally find out what lies beneath the red planet's surface

Rovers on Mars have drilled, hammered and dug into the surface of the red planet – but so far, none have been able to get very far.

That's may all change in September 2016, when Nasa's newest mission to the red planet, InSight, arrives on the alien world in the hope of digging deep beneath its surface.

Testing is now underway on the lander, which is about the size of a car and will be the first mission devoted to understanding the interior structure of the red planet.

Examining the planet's deep interior could reveal clues about how all rocky planets, including Earth, formed and evolved.

The current testing will help make sure InSight can work in and survive deep space travel and the harsh conditions of the Martian surface. 

The spacecraft will lift off from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, and land on Mars about six months later.

The technical capabilities and knowledge gained from Insight, and other Mars missions, are crucial to Nasa's journey to Mars, which includes sending astronauts to the red planet in the 2030s.

The three-legged InSight lander will go to a site near the Martian equator and provide information for a planned mission length of 720 days - about two years.

InSight adapts a design from the successful Nasa Phoenix Mars Lander, which examined ice and soil on far-northern Mars in 2008.

Guided by images of the surroundings taken by the lander, InSight's robotic arm will place a seismometer on the surface.

The arm will also put the heat-flow probe in position to hammer itself into the ground to a depth of 9 to 15 feet (2.7 to 4.5 metres).

Another experiment will use the radio link between InSight and Nasa's Deep Space Network antennas on Earth to precisely measure a wobble in Mars' rotation that could reveal whether it has a molten or solid core.

'Today, our robotic scientific explorers are paving the way, making great progress on the journey to Mars,' said Jim Green, director of Nasa's Planetary Science Division.

'Together, humans and robotics will pioneer Mars and the solar system.'

During the environmental testing phase at Lockheed Martin's Space Systems facility near Denver, the lander will be exposed to extreme temperatures.

The facility will create vacuum conditions of nearly zero air pressure simulating interplanetary space, and a battery of other tests over the next seven months.

The first will be a thermal vacuum test in the spacecraft's 'cruise' configuration, which will be used during its seven-month journey to Mars.

'The assembly of InSight went very well and now it's time to see how it performs,' said Stu Spath, InSight program manager at Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver.

'The environmental testing regimen is designed to wring out any issues with the spacecraft so we can resolve them while it's here on Earth.'

 

 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3100131/Nasa-s-mission-Mars-Tests-begin-radical-lander-aims-lies-beneath-red-planet-s-surface.html

Testing is now underway on the InSight lander, which will be the first mission devoted to understanding the interior structure of the red planet

 

The technical capabilities and knowledge gained from Insight, and other Mars missions, are crucial to Nasa's journey to Mars, which includes sending astronauts to the red planet in the 2030s

 

Engineers and technicians at Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, run a test of deploying the solar arrays on the Insight lander, which is around the size of a family car

 

This parachute testing for the InSight mission to Mars was conducted inside the world's largest wind tunnel

 

The InSight mission aims to investigate how rocky planets formed and evolved. In this scene from January 2015, Lockheed Martin spacecraft specialists are working on the lander in a clean room

Later....

[Draggendrop Veteran]

A few posts back, I made mention of MRO moving into position for the NASA Insight mission. The MRO will be used to monitor the events of the complete landing phase of "Insight" and will relay the landing information back to NASA.....

What is MRO?

Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) is a multipurpose spacecraft designed to conduct reconnaissance andexploration of Mars from orbit. The US$720 million spacecraft was built by Lockheed Martin under the supervision of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The mission is managed by the California Institute of Technology, at the JPL, in La Cañada Flintridge, California, for the NASA Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. It was launched August 12, 2005, and attained Martian orbit on March 10, 2006. In November 2006, after five months of aerobraking, it entered its final science orbit and began its primary science phase. As MRO entered orbit, it joined five other active spacecraft which were either in orbit or on the planet's surface: Mars Global Surveyor, Mars Express, 2001 Mars Odyssey, and the two Mars Exploration Rovers (Spirit and Opportunity); at the time, this set a record for the most operational spacecraft in the immediate vicinity of Mars. Mars Global Surveyor and the Spirit rover have since ceased to function; the remainder remain operational as of July 2015.

MRO contains a host of scientific instruments such as cameras, spectrometers, and radar, which are used to analyze the landforms, stratigraphy, minerals, and ice of Mars. It paves the way for future spacecraft by monitoring Mars' daily weather and surface conditions, studying potential landing sites, and hosting a new telecommunications system. MRO's telecommunications system will transfer more data back to Earth than all previous interplanetary missions combined, and MRO will serve as a highly capable relay satellite for future missions.

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Reconnaissance_Orbiter

MRO surface photo's
http://mars.nasa.gov/mro/multimedia/images/

The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has successfully completed its planned maneuver on Wednesday, July 29. The said action is said to be a crucial intervention to prepare itself for receiving the InSight Mars lander mission on Sept. 18, 2016. The maneuver started at 6:21:31 a.m. PDT and lasted for 75 seconds.

The original plan is for the maneuver to take place for 77 seconds through the firing of six intermediate-size thrusters to adjust the orbit timing of the said spacecraft. The desired position for the MRO, which has already been achieved, is said to be the best location to receive radio transmissions from the InSight as it passes through the atmosphere of Mars and finally lands. The six thrusters, used to correct the trajectory of the spacecraft from Earth to Mars, are said to have the ability to generate five lbs. of thrust.

"Without making this orbit change maneuver, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter would be unable to hear from InSight during the landing, but this will put us in the right place at the right time," says Dan Johnston, MRO Project Manager from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

The MRO is also tasked to record the transmissions from the InSight so that experts from the Earth can play them back and have a record of the most crucial events from the arrival of newcomer spacecraft to Mars. The said recording task is not the first time for MRO, as it also recorded the landings of NASA's Phoenix Mars lander and NASA's Curiosity Mars in 2008 and 2012 respectively.

After InSight lands successfully, it will start to analyze the deep interior of the Martian planet and look for data that can help identify the details of formation and evolution of all rocky planets such as the Earth.

 

Meanwhile, the MRO will continue to study Mars while awaiting for the arrival of InSight. The tasks of the MRO include obtaining atmospheric profiles, subsurface information and high-resolution images and spectral data. MRO will also continue to look for possible landing sites and communicate with other rovers in Mars. According to NASA, MRO has already been able to provide multiple information about Mars more than any other space missions combined.

In Nov. 15, 2006, MRO was able to pull off a maneuver that fired the thrusters for 76 seconds. This is said to be the last maneuver made by the orbiter that is larger than the latest one.

 http://www.techtimes.com/articles/73393/20150731/nasa-preparing-for-mars-insight-next-gen-lander-touchdown.htm

[Draggendrop Veteran]

This is in regard to the NASA "BIG" announcement for a "mystery solved", mentioned a few posts back...

I have not decided on a response, either this...

or this.....

The "info" was leaked to various sources, a few hours prior, including the New York Times and Space.com. My reaction, is like many of the comments that you will find on various articles and blogs/forums......to the point that I may never bother with a NASA press release ever again...absolute waste of time for "definitive SIGNs of liquid water"

To put a handle on this, 14 orbiters sent to Mars, 10 landers, since the 60's.....how many billions of dollars?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_missions_to_Mars

I have been following the probes for that many years, mainly due to Carl Sagan, who really put the scientific bug into my breakfast cereal. Viking one and two were an astounding success with the data recieved, to the point that, researchers are still combing the data.

We have known for a long time about the ice caps of Mars, more recently, the glaciation activity and the melt runoff in various crater walls. We have known about the "potential" of water reserves from many forms of instruments and have even detected water and have been able to give rough estimates of concentrations near lander sites, as well as other sites, via orbiters.

The Viking data still holds up for temperature variations as well as atmospheric pressure variations, even the effect of the dust storms on these variables.

Since this time, no one has bothered to send a "full weather station complement" to mars...on the ground...real time...for  long duration. We do get data, some times with other sensors to show that at night, Mars can reach 100 % humidity, and cover the rover/lander with a lot of condensate. During the day, the humidity, at equatorial location, has been described to have low humidity, comparable to some deserts.

Does Mars have water...Of course it has water....in vapour for short periods, in solute with minerals, particularly under glaciated runs and more recently, striated streaks observed in many photo's, over many years, to show a melting area at open faces where a "reserve" is loosing water. Mars has a very low atmospheric pressure, and extreme cold temperatures, but does warm to near 0 degrees celsius, in equatorial areas. If a liquid is to flow, it will be a solute of water and minerals, which will alter the freezing point of pure water. Were we to find pure water...not a chance...but we will in solute, and it is not a problem getting water out of solute. 

Nasa has been dragging this silliness on for decades, and even when something is detected, no follow up.....here is an example...

In selecting the landing site for the 2020 rover, the space agency is ruling out places that might be habitable, including those with R.S.L.s.

That prohibition may continue even though two candidate R.S.L.s have been identified on the mountain in Gale Crater that NASA’s Curiosity rover is now exploring, not very far from its current planned path.

NASA and the Curiosity team could decide to approach the streaks without driving onto them, or to simply observe from a distance. The rover still has at least several months of driving before it would pass them.

“These are ongoing conversations,” said Catharine A. Conley, NASA’s planetary protection officer, who coordinates the efforts to minimize the chances of life inadvertently crossing the solar system.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/29/science/space/mars-life-liquid-water.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=second-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0

We have an opportunity to investigate, will this happen, not a chance...same silliness decade after decade.....by 2020, Nasa may state that there are "aquafers of solute water, but only when they have a "scientific reason" to get more cash for something else. This "dead horse" still has funding life left.

SpaceX, with remote "plants", and finally, boots on the ground, will put this BS to rest....Yes, there is hope...from Newspace.... 

end of rant......

[Draggendrop Veteran]

This article ties in with the aftermath of "Insight" and the overlap of "Exomars"...the "sample return" idea will be done, but I doubt it will go as per this article...not with that price tag, when Spacex will be starting their forays there......"Red Dragon anyone"

NASA Eyes Sample-return Capability for Post-2020 Mars Orbiter 

Jim Watzin, NASA’s Mars exploration program director, said NASA is now considering adding to the post-2020 orbiter “the sample rendezvous capture and return capability, which allows us to retrieve the sample from orbit and prepare it for the return trip home.” Credit: NASA 

WASHINGTON — A Mars orbiter NASA plans to launch in the 2020s could carry the mechanisms needed to collect and store sealed Martian surface samples for a return trip to Earth, an agency official said here Oct. 5.

The technology is crucial for the long-term, multimission, sample-return campaign that is quietly driving NASA’s robotic Mars exploration program. It is nonetheless conspicuously absent from the agency’s well-publicized “Journey to Mars” public relations campaign and barely a blip in official budget documents drafted each year to justify construction of new Mars rovers and satellites.

The orbiter would be NASA’s next strategic mission — that is, a mission custom-ordered by the agency and not selected through a competition that includes proposed missions to other places — to the red planet after the Mars 2020 rover, which is scheduled to launch that year to cache surface samples and leave them on the ground for later retrieval.

The orbiter would be designed for a five-year mission and could launch as soon as 2022, Jim Watzin, NASA’s Mars exploration program director, told members of the NASA Advisory Council’s (NAC) planetary science subcommittee here during a meeting at NASA Headquarters.

Watzin first mentioned the orbiter publicly earlier this year, characterizing it primarily as a telecommunications package to replace the aging Mars Odyssey, which today relays data from surface assets such as the Curiosity rover back to Earth over NASA’s Deep Space Network.

In successive public meetings this year, Watzin has described more and more potential features for the spacecraft, including optical communications gear and a solar-electric propulsion system that would dramatically increase the spacecraft’s orbital maneuvering capabilities. The orbiter also would carry at least one remote sensing instrument to ensure that, whatever else it does, it can contribute to Mars science.

Watzin said NASA is now considering adding “the sample rendezvous capture and return capability, which allows us to retrieve the sample from orbit and prepare it for the return trip home.”

Implicit there is the idea that what Watzin now calls a “multi-function orbiter” would pluck samples cached by Mars 2020 from a future Mars ascent vehicle that would deliver the samples to Martian orbit. From there the orbiter would return the samples back to Earth.

 

 

 The orbiter would be NASA’s next strategic mission to the red planet after the Mars 2020 rover (above), which is scheduled to launch that year to cache surface samples and leave them on the ground for later retrieval. Credit: NASA 

That ascent vehicle, which like the orbiter is only a proposal at this stage with no approved funding, might be a part of the Mars rover that follows Mars 2020 and sweeps up the samples Mars 2020 plans to collect. Alternatively, the ascent vehicle might be a successor to the sweep-up-only rover, depending on how ­­­— and if — NASA decides to try and retrieve the Mars 2020 samples.

Whether the orbiter would perform or merely demonstrate sample capture and return capabilities is still being discussed, Watzin said. If it left Martian orbit, it would leave the same hole in NASA’s telecommunications infrastructure that the increasingly complex spacecraft was conceived to fill, he noted.

Watzin originally pegged a 2022 launch for the orbiter, but with scientists in the Next Orbiter Science Analysis Group piling on more payloads, a 2024 date might be more realistic, according to an abstract of a presentation the NASA-chartered group plans to give at the American Geophysical Union’s fall meeting in San Francisco Dec. 14-18.

Either way it remains uncertain whether the White House will approve the mission in the first place. “We don’t have the budget for it yet,” Watzin acknowledged. NASA did not ask for funding for the mission in the 2016 budget request the White House delivered to Congress in February.

While the White House has refused to commit outright to a Mars sample-return campaign because of the associated long-term expense, the Obama administration has shown some willingness to let NASA put the pieces of such a campaign in place.

In 2013, for example, the White House agreed to let NASA build the sample caching Mars 2020 rover out of spare parts from the $2.5 billion Curiosity rover that has been exploring Mars since 2012.

NASA could have a similar idea in mind for the orbiter, at least with regard to the science payload. The instruments scientists are considering are all far advanced on NASA’s Technology Readiness Level scale, “so we don’t have to invent anything to do the additional reconnaissance that we have to do,” Watzin said.

 

http://spacenews.com/nasa-eyes-sample-return-capability-for-post-2020-mars-orbiter/ 

[Draggendrop Veteran]

NASA Mars mission suffers problem with key instrument

 

NASA's InSight spacecraft has undergone pre-launch testing at Lockheed Martin in Colorado. NASA

 

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A seismometer instrument destined for Mars has leaks in its vacuum container. The problem could delay the scheduled 4 March launch of NASA's InSight spacecraft, which is supposed to carry the seismometer to the red planet.

InSight's goal is to study marsquakes and deduce the planet's interior structure — never before studied — by measuring the speed at which seismic waves travel through it. The Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure, built by the French space agency CNES, is the instrument InSight needs to accomplish that goal.

Technicians have detected a small leak in the vacuum-sealed sphere that holds the instrument's three seismometers, NASAWatch reported and NASA confirmed on 3 December. The leak must be fixed for the mission to accomplish its science goals. CNES engineers are working to repair it before shipping the instrument to the Vandenberg Air Force Base in California to be installed in the spacecraft and tested.

 

The InSight mission is designed to study seismic activity on Mars.    NASA

 

 

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It remains unclear whether the problem is severe enough to bump InSight out of its scheduled launch window of 4–30 March. If it does not launch by 30 March, it could be delayed for many months until Earth and Mars are once again in a favourable geometry.

“NASA and CNES managers are committed to launching in March and are currently assessing the launch window timeline,” the statement said. 

The US$425-million spacecraft is currently at Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Denver, Colorado, where it has undergone tests to simulate the space environment. It will be shipped to Vandenberg in the coming weeks, and the seismometer instrument is scheduled to be added to it in early January.

InSight — which stands for Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport — also carries a separate instrument to measure heat flow at the Martian surface. That instrument, built by the German space agency DLR, is already installed inside the spacecraft.

If it launches in March, InSight is slated to land near the Martian equator on 28 September 2016 and work for two Earth years.

http://www.nature.com/news/nasa-mars-mission-suffers-problem-with-key-instrument-1.18951

 

also noted at....

http://nasawatch.com/archives/2015/12/payload-problem.html

 

[Draggendrop Veteran]

Mars Mission Team Addressing Vacuum Leak on Key Science Instrument

 

The InSight lander has completed assembly and testing at Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Colorado, and is being prepared to ship to the Vandenberg AFB launch site. Installation of the seismometer is planned for early January. The Heat Flow and Physical Properties Package (HP3) from Germany and the rest of the scientific payload are already installed.

 

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A key science instrument that will be carried aboard NASA's Interior Exploration Using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport (InSight) spacecraft being prepared for launch in March 2016 is experiencing a leak in the vacuum container carrying its main sensors. The sensors are part of an instrument called the Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure (SEIS), which is provided by the French Space Agency (CNES).

 

The seismometer is the prime science payload that will help answer questions about the interior structure and processes within the deep Martian interior. The SEIS instrument has three high-sensitivity seismometers enclosed in a sealed sphere.

 

The seismometers need to operate in a vacuum in order to provide exquisite sensitivity to ground motions as small as the width of an atom. After the final sealing of the sphere, a small leak was detected, that would have prevented meeting the science requirements once delivered to the surface of Mars.

 

The CNES/JPL team is currently working to repair the leak, prior to instrument integration and final environmental tests in France before shipping to the United States for installation into the spacecraft and launch.

 

The InSight lander has completed assembly and testing at Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Colorado, and is being prepared to ship to the Vandenberg AFB launch site. Installation of the seismometer is planned for early January. The Heat Flow and Physical Properties Package (HP3) from Germany and the rest of the scientific payload are already installed.

 

NASA and CNES managers are committed to launching in March and are currently assessing the launch period timeline. This will be the first launch on the West Coast of a Mars mission and the first project devoted to investigating the deep interior of the Red Planet.

 

The InSight Project is managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Lockheed Martin is building and testing the spacecraft. InSight is part of NASA's Discovery Program, which is managed by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.

http://www.marsdaily.com/reports/Mars_Mission_Team_Addressing_Vacuum_Leak_on_Key_Science_Instrument_999.html

 

[Draggendrop Veteran]

French Sensor for NASA Mars Lander Should be Fixed in Time for Launch

 

The SEIS instrument qualification model for the Mars InSight mission undergoes testing at the CNES facility in Toulouse, France. Credit: CNES/E. Grimault

 

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LE BOURGET, France — The French-built instrument for NASA’s InSight Mars lander scheduled for launch in March is expected to be repaired in time for shipment to the United States in early January after developing a leak in its vacuum container, the president of the French space agency, CNES, said Dec. 8.

Briefing reporters here at the COP21 United Nations Climate Change Conference, Jean-Yves Le Gall said the leak, which compromised the required high-precision vacuum chamber carrying InSight sensors, was caused by a defective weld that is applied to close off the tank.

The leak’s cause has been identified and a new weld performed, Le Gall said. Tests to confirm the new weld’s integrity are underway and, assuming no problems, will be completed in time to ship the instrument to the United States in the first week of January. It will then be integrated into the InSight lander in preparation for the March launch.

France’s space science community has long been heavily invested in Mars exploration, and CNES has been onboard multiple NASA Mars missions.

For InSight, France is providing the Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure (SEIS) instrument, a suite of three seismometers designed to analyze the interior of Mars.

The vacuum environment will permit the seismometers to detect faint ground movement to assess even minor seismic waves deep in the planet’s interior.

The titanium sphere, about the size of a melon, had been sealed and testing begun when the leak was discovered.

“The leak is very small but this mission requires a very high level of vacuum and this was not possible unless repaired. It is a very demanding instrument,” Le Gall said. “But I believe we have gotten past the problem with three welding barriers to be sure there is no leakage.

“We still need to continue to test it in vacuum conditions for a while — more than a few days — to verify that it is hermetically sealed,” Le Gall said.

The vacuum container is completing its test phase at manufacturer Sodern’s Paris facility. SEIS had been completed by Sodern and sent to CNES’s Toulouse facility in July before being returned to the company for repair and testing.

http://spacenews.com/french-sensor-for-nasa-mars-lander-should-be-fixed-in-time-for-launch/

 

With all the launch pressure, it will be ready in time....even if they have to use chewing gum and duct tape.....

[Draggendrop Veteran]

Mars lander arrives at VAFB ahead of March launch

 

A Lockheed Martin team unloads NASA's InSight Mars lander at Vandenberg Air Force Base on Wednesday after it was delivered from Colorado where it was built. It will launch to Mars in March 2016.

 

Quote

A spacecraft that is destined for Mars arrived at Vandenberg Air Force Base on Wednesday for final processing in preparation for a March launch.

NASA’s InSight spacecraft was delivered from Buckley Air Force Base in Colorado, where it was constructed, by Lockheed Martin. The lander, which will be the first Mars-bound spacecraft ever to launch from California, is set to be carried to the red planet aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas V 401 rocket.

 

"InSight has traveled the first leg of its journey, getting from Colorado to California, and we're on track to start the next leg, to Mars," said InSight Principal Investigator Bruce Banerdt, of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena.

 

The InSight lander will be used to study the deep interior of Mars and is expected to help scientists better understand the processes that shaped the rocky planets — including Earth — of the inner solar system. It also is expected to aid in the understanding of how the planets were formed.

The craft is scheduled to launch between March 4 and March 30. Prior to launch, one of the mission's key science instruments, its seismometer, must be installed. That key piece, which was developed by the French Space Agency CNES, is scheduled for delivery to VAFB in January.

 

The 1,380-pound spacecraft, which consists of the lander, aeroshell and cruise stage, was shipped to the Central Coast aboard a U.S. Air Force transport plane in an environmentally controlled container, according to Lockheed Martin.

 

InSight's heat-probe instrument from Germany's space agency, the lander's robotic arm and the rest of the payload already are installed on the spacecraft.

 

InSight, which is short for Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations Geodesy and Heat Transport, is the first Mars mission dedicated to studying the planet’s deep interior. The mission is part of NASA's Discovery Program, managed by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.

 

Along with the InSight lander’s instruments, it also will carry a microchip bearing the names of about 827,000 people worldwide who registered in an online "send your name to Mars" opportunity in August and September.

 

People who missed out on having their names sent on this mission will be able to sign up for a “boarding pass” for a future Mars mission at nasa.gov.

http://lompocrecord.com/news/local/mars-lander-arrives-at-vafb-ahead-of-march-launch/article_4576f171-f359-5216-8b1d-504af6369b89.html

 

[Draggendrop Veteran]

NASA Gives up on Fixing Mars Insight in Time for March Launch

 

Concept art of InSight Lander drilling beneath Mars' surface. Credit: NASA

 

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WASHINGTON — NASA will hold a press call Tuesday afternoon (Dec. 22) to discuss its decision to suspend a March launch campaign for the Mars InSight lander, which was shipped to its launch site this month despite a problem with one of its instruments.

 

“After thorough examination, NASA managers have decided to suspend the March 2016 launch of the Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations Geodesy and Heat Transport (InSight) mission,” NASA said Tuesday morning in a notice to journalists.  “The decision follows unsuccessful attempts to repair an air leak on a key component of the mission’s science payload.”

 

That instrument is the Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure (SEIS), provided by the French Space Agency (CNES). NASA confirmed Dec. 3 the instrument — which is still in France — suffered “a leak in the vacuum container carrying its main sensors.”

 

The leak was caused by a defective weld on the instrument’s vacuum tank, CNES President Jean-Yves Le Gall told SpaceNews Dec. 8. At the time, Le Gall said CNES had performed a new weld that should have fixed the problem.

 

Even as NASA was preparing to brief reporters Dec. 22,  Le Gall told SpaceNews that CNES had not given up on fixing the SEIS instrument in time to launch this year.

 

Quote

However, one official familiar with the instrument, being integrated at Paris-based Sodern, said CNES and NASA on Dec. 22 decided that too many questions remained about the integrity of the SEIS sphere and that the 2016 launch would be cancelled.

 

InSight, which was built by Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Denver, arrived at its launch site at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California Dec. 17. SEIS was to follow in January and be integrated with the lander at Vandenberg.

 

If InSight  misses its 2016 launch window, the spacecraft likely will have to wait two more years to get off the ground. Favorable Earth-Mars launch windows occur only about once every 26 months.

 

NASA selected InSight as the 12th in its Discovery line of cost-capped Planetary Science missions in 2012. The lander, based heavily off the Mars Phoenix craft that touched down on the red planet in 2008, beat out a comet-hopping probe and a vessel designed to sail the hydrocarbon seas of Saturn’s moon Titan to win NASA funding.

 

InSight’s cost, excluding launch, was capped at $425 million. The mission was set to launch aboard an Atlas 5 in what would have been the first interplanetary launch from Vandenberg. Such missions ordinarily launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.

http://spacenews.com/nasa-gives-up-on-fixing-mars-insight-in-time-for-march-launch/

 

This is real troubling.....but, there is always a chance....

[DocM]

No, there isn't. Looks like they're screwed for this window. 

 

[Draggendrop Veteran]

2018 will need Mars traffic control, which is good...a lot of data to help with SpaceX precolony  requirements later on.

[DocM]

The 2018 window may be crowded if a Red Dragon ends up in that window. 

[Draggendrop Veteran]

Just did a quick check, in the 2018 to 2020, there could be (delay dependent), 11 orbiters and 5 rovers around Mars, not counting SpaceX. This will be by NASA, ESA, ISRO, UAE, and China.

 

[Draggendrop Veteran]

Mars InSight Lander Won’t Launch until 2018 — If it Launches at All

 

RETURN TO SENDER | Lockheed Martin delivered NASA’s InSight spacecraft to its California launch site just last week. The spacecraft will return to Lockheed Martin's Denver facility, where it will be placed in storage. Credit: Lockheed Martin

 

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WASHINGTON — If it isn’t canceled altogether, NASA’s Mars InSight lander will now launch more than two years later than planned, thanks to a balky seismometer, the agency’s top science official told reporters Dec. 22.

“We’re looking at some time in the May 2018 timeframe,” John Gunsfeld, NASA associate administrator for science, said during a Dec. 22 conference call.

 

InSight was supposed to launch in March, but a series of leaks in a mission-critical instrument, the Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure (SEIS) provided by the French space agency, CNES, will keep the mission grounded well past a 26-day Mars launch window that opens March 4, Grunsfeld said.

 

When CNES discovered the latest leak during environmental testing Dec. 21, the French and U.S. space agencies were left with no choice but to suspend the March launch campaign, Grunsfeld told reporters.

 

Technical concerns aside, InSight could still be canceled for budgetary reasons — a possibility Grunsfeld would not rule out, because InSight is a cost-capped mission in NASA’s Discovery line of competitively selected missions.

 

The critical variable for InSight will be the cost of fixing SEIS, and storing the craft at Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Denver — where it was built — for roughly two years. InSight was delivered to California’s Vandenberg Air Force Base launch site Dec. 16 and now must be sent  back to Colorado. SEIS was supposed to arrive at Vandenberg in January for integration with the lander.

 

Grunsfeld on Dec. 22 would not estimate the final storage and repair bill, but said NASA would appraise the costs in the coming months.

If InSight survives its pending review, it will be the agency’s first interplanetary mission to lift off from Vandenberg; such missions normally launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.

 

NASA first confirmed defects with SEIS on Dec. 3, saying the instrument had suffered “a leak in the vacuum container carrying its main sensors.”

The leak disclosed Dec. 3 was caused by a defective weld on the instrument’s vacuum tank, CNES President Jean-Yves Le Gall told SpaceNews Dec. 8. At the time, Le Gall said CNES had performed a new weld that should have fixed the problem. Apparently, it did not.

 

NASA selected InSight as the 12th in its Discovery mission in 2012, setting a cost-cap of $425 million in 2010 dollars, excluding launch. The lander, based on the Mars Phoenix craft that touched down on the red planet in 2008, beat out a comet-hopping probe and a vessel designed to sail the hydrocarbon seas of Saturn’s moon Titan to win NASA funding.

http://spacenews.com/mars-insight-lander-wont-launch-until-2018-if-it-launches-at-all/

 

[DocM]

They won't say it, but the NASA mission managers are really hacked off over this. I mean seriously, because their funding for this mission is thin and storing the probe is not cheap. 

[Draggendrop Veteran]

I was really hoping this was going to fly...depressing news.....A lot of work and planning went into this. Feel bad for the folks involved. 

Thanks for the info Doc....

[Draggendrop Veteran]

CNES Vows To Get to the Bottom of Leaks that Forced Mars InSight Delay

 

The SEIS instrument qualification model for the Mars InSight mission in testing at the CNES facility in Toulouse, France. Credit: CNES/E. Grimault

 

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PARIS — The French space agency, CNES, on Jan. 4 created an outside board of inquiry to examine the circumstances surrounding the discovery of multiple leaks in an instrument intended to launch on NASA’s Mars InSight lander — leaks that appeared so late in the instrument’s development that NASA and CNES were forced to scrap a planned March launch.

The next launch opportunity is in May 2018.

In a briefing at the agency’s headquarters here, CNES President Jean-Yves Le Gall said it was only natural to want to have “a set of new eyes” investigate an anomaly of such serious consequence, which he said was “a real blow” to CNES.

CNES is prime contractor for the Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure (SEIS) instrument — three seismometers designed to analyze the Mars interior by detecting ground movement from small seismic events in the Mars interior.

One French official said the SEIS seismometers were so demanding that their development may have obscured the challenge of the titanium vacuum sphere, intended to operate in a temperature range beyond which that material is normally tested.

A first leak, appearing in November, was repaired in time for the March launch. Then another appeared, and then another. Up until Dec. 22 NASA and CNES had hoped to be able to deliver SEIS (already three months behind schedule) by Jan. 5 — just within the latest deadline to make the March launch.

A final leak, apparently from a different location, resulted in the decision to abandon the 2016 launch opportunity. Le Gall said the leak source was still not entirely clear. CNES officials have said it would take several months to get to the bottom of the problem.

 

Quote

He said NASA has asked CNES to continue as though a 2018 InSight launch is assured. But NASA officials said during a Dec. 22 conference call with journalists that the agency’s budget rules leave some doubt as to whether sufficient funds can be found to cover 26 months of storage of InSight — assuming that the United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket being readied for the March launch can be repurposed to another customer.

NASA officials said the agency had spent some $525 million of the $675 million, including launch and operations, that had been budgeted for Mars InSight.

Le Gall said SEIS had been budgeted at CNES at around 50 million euros ($54 million). Assuming a rapid discovery of the leak’s root cause and its resolution, Le Gall said the 26-month delay would add between 10 percent and 20 percent to the SEIS budget.

As is usually the case for science missions, CNES and NASA are operating on a no-exchange-of-funds basis, meaning CNES will incur the SEIS cost overruns on its own. Similarly, NASA will incur the cost of storing InSight and managing costs associated with the Atlas 5 rocket.

CNES had already positioned 2016 as its “Destination Mars” year. The agency’s main briefing room was decked out in Mars terrain photos on the floor and wall. CNES is playing a role not only on InSight and other NASA Mars exploration missions but also on the Euro-Russian ExoMars 2016 and 2018 missions.

ExoMars and InSight had approached their launch dates with opposite profiles. InSight had secure funding and development as it approached final assembly. ExoMars faced funding challenges from the start and had already missed its January launch date because of a component glitch.

Now InSight will spend 26 months awaiting its next launch opportunity, while ExoMars 2016 has arrived at Russia’s Baikonur Cosmodrome spaceport in Kazakhstan for final launch preparations.

http://spacenews.com/cnes-vows-to-get-to-the-bottom-of-leaks-that-forced-mars-insight-delay/

 

[Draggendrop Veteran]

A decision will be made in March for the future, or lack thereof, for Insight. Fingers crossed.....

 

NASA to Decide Fate of Troubled Mars Lander Next Month

 

Quote

NASA will decide soon whether a Mars lander that was supposed to launch next month will ever get off the ground.

 

NASA announced in December that its InSight lander, which is designed to probe the interior structure of Mars, would not be ready to blast off in March as originally planned because of a leak in the vacuum container surrounding one its key instruments.

 

Favorable alignments of Earth and Mars come along just once every 26 months, so NASA could aim to send InSight on its way in mid-2018. But it's also possible that the mission will be scrapped altogether, agency officials have said. 

 

"We are still assessing InSight," NASA chief financial officer David Radzanowski said during a news conference Tuesday (Feb. 9) about the space agency's budget request for fiscal year 2017. "We are making a decision in the March timeframe as to whether we will continue support to InSight for the next launch opportunity in 2018, or go some other route."

more at the link...

http://www.space.com/31890-nasa-mars-insight-lander-fate.html

[DocM]

Man, they really fracked up this one and the Orion service module isn't a prize either. Sheesh.

[Unobscured Vision]

Wow. Gotta hand it to the ESA and its' satellite Space Agencies. They really know how to wield bureaucracy.

 

I mean, this Lander is going to do some decent science and all, but that particular trouble system has a really strange design. I was talking to my brother about it, and he's been following this story with interest -- and he can't figure it out either. It's over-complicated, over-designed, and way too much for the job, he says -- and he thinks it would likely fail within a month of getting on-target if it even survived the trip.

 

In short, he's of the opinion that it's a money sink. Something never intended to really work well, but cost a fortune to build. It's a nasty trick that we saw during the late 80's and early 90's; those extreme cost missions that tended to fall way short of expectations if they worked at all; all with the shady purpose of garnering an early Christmas for the companies that were contracted to build them. Remember the NASA Administrator, afterwards, making the big speech after the string of failures saying "Better, Faster, Cheaper"? That practice is what actually led to that speech and change of direction.

 

Looks like someone's been doing that again, but this time it's with one system.

[Draggendrop Veteran]

My standard is that of the voyagers...keep it simple and build it tough....

[T3X4S]

Draggendrop & DocM - are y'all w/ NASA ?  Engineers ?  PhD(s) ? Astrosomethingorothers ?

Just wondering because your posts seem to be more insider-ish and knowledgeable than mere enthusiasts.

Nothing wrong with enthusiasts, of course, but you guys seem to be more than that.

Only reason I ask is because for someone that loves cosmology, astronomy, theoretical physics, and sci-fi ; I am so painfully ignorant about NASA, SpaceX and general space exploration.
 

[Draggendrop Veteran]

Myself, I'm an electrical engineer (Beng), RF comm, Nav and Radar, heavy aircraft background. Prior military service, all cold war. Have a minor in mathematics and would like to continue towards a mechanical engineering degree. Have always had a huge interest in physics, space and ancient archaeology. Never with NASA, but would have been proud to. Just a nerd....