AMAZING Facts About NASA's InSight Mars Mission
From the high tech specs of the Mars-destined rocket to the breakdown of its 6-month trip
through space, today we look at Amazing Facts About NASA’s InSight Mars Mission.
#8 Scientific Goals In May of 2018, NASA launched a spacecraft
to Mars with the mission to analyze and understand the origin of the planet and others like it.
Equipped with top of the line technology, this vehicle was meant to deploy a robotic
lander that would descend upon the surface of the red planet.
Once there, scientists expect the lander to measure the rate of meteoric impacts and seismic
activity on Mars, as well as determine details regarding the crust, mantle, and core of the
planet.
While sending a seismometer to space has previously turned out unsuccessful, this 830 million
dollar project is expected to have worked out the kinks.
Which is good news as it remains the starring tool of the Interior Exploration using Seismic
Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport mission — better known as InSight.
#7 Spacecraft Specifications Space missions like these require a complex
shuttle broken down into separate stages and the InSight mission is no different.
The rocket chosen to carry the lander to Mars was the Atlas V-401, a massive rocket built
for interplanetary flight.
When erected for launch, the rocket stands at an imposing 188 feet tall.
When loaded down with all of the launch requirements, lander payload, and other equipment, this
spacecraft weighs in at a staggering 730 thousand pounds.
That’s three times the weight of a Blue Whale!
The first stage of the craft is the Atlas V Rocket, an element necessary for boosting
and propelling the shuttle through the Earth’s atmosphere.
The thrust of the launch powers up to 850,000 pounds of full throttle and will accelerate
the spacecraft to an insane 10,000 miles per hour!
The second stage of the Atlas V-401 rocket is referred to as Centaur and takes over once
the spacecraft is ready to enter Earth’s low orbit.
Referred to as the “brains” of the vehicle, Centaur has the capability to control it’s
orientation precisely and as such plays an important role when entering and exiting Earth
orbit and beginning the journey to Mars.
Liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen power the secondary engine which can thrust the remaining
stages forth with about 101,820 newtons of force.
It also plays a key role in the third stage thanks to a flight control computer on board
granting it extreme precision.
This final stage is called the payload fairing and is responsible for delivering the lander
to the Mars surface.
As such, it is the most important portion of the launch as it contains all the equipment
necessary to conduct NASA’s intended research.
#6 Keeping Contact While the InSight Mars project is an operation
of the United States government by way of the national space program NASA, they wouldn’t
be able to perform this task without some international assistance.
In order to remain in contact with the spacecraft, NASA utilizes a network of antennas spread
across the world to reach recipient vehicles on interplanetary journeys.
These three antenna complexes form NASA’s Deep Space Network and are spread approximately
120 degrees separate from one another around the world.
In addition to being chosen for their distance from each other, these three locations were
also picked for their geographical traits.
All three are situated within mountainous, bowl-shaped valleys as a natural means to
prevent interference from radio frequencies.
Stationed in the Mojave Desert of California, near Madrid, Spain, and next to Canberra,
Australia, these three complexes allow NASA to send precise signals toward the InSight
craft no matter where the Earth is in orbit.
The Deep Space Network connects with Mars-orbiting probes, satellites, and telescopes to relay
data to and from landers and rovers on the planet’s surface.
#5 Terrestrial Planets The main subject of the InSight mission is
to evaluate the structure, integrity and stability of Mars as well as terrestrial planets as
a whole.
Rocky planets aren’t especially common in our solar system and as a result, little is
known regarding their nature other than what we’ve gathered from our own planet as well
as from past missions to Mars.
While their structure may be similar, the main difference noted from retrieving samples
is that each planet has distinct chemicals found in their respective cores, crusts, and
mantles.
These types of planets typically share the majority of their composition with meteorites,
however their development differs greatly from planet to planet.
Typically involving melting and differentiation, this process of planet creation is still poorly
understood.
Factors like chemical composition, pressure, and temperature affect the outer portions
of the planet as its molten surface crystalizes and cools.
Some features like the tendency for light minerals to rise to form the crust and heavy
features sinking to form the mantle are well-recorded and comprehended, but many questions still
remain.
Atmospheric and surface composition, volcanic and tectonic activity, and potential magnetic
fields require more thorough research as these factors are determined by the first ten million
decades of the planets development.
And with that in mind, it only makes sense that this lander mission to Mars would be
named InSight!
#4 The Journey The trip to Mars is a long one and can be
divided into sections: Pre-Launch, the Launch, the Cruise, the Approach, and the Landing.
Before the InSight project could even lift off, the path to their interplanetary destination
took years to prepare.
In 2011, the program was one of 3 finalists chosen out of 28 proposals to receive funding
for further study.
By the following year, the program was picked up for launch and NASA was ready to begin
funding its development with a spending cap of 425 million dollars.
But Lockheed Martin wouldn’t begin construction on the InSight lander until 2014 with testing
slated for 2015.
Development of the seismometer meant for Mars had its share of issues and led to the launch
being delayed from 2016 all the way to 2018!
So from the time of its presentation, it took seven years for the pieces to come together
and get the InSight mission off the ground.
From there, the journey would proceed to the launch phase, which took place in May 2018.
The flight took off from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California and is the first of its
kind to launch from this location.
But this would only kick off the beginning of the 301 million mile trip.
Once its breached the Earth’s orbit, the spacecraft then travels at a speed of 6,200
miles per hour along a curved route as it approaches Mars’ orbital path.
During this cruise period, NASA makes multiple adjustments to the craft’s trajectory to
make sure it remains on course across the nearly six-month trip.
In addition to checking on its trajectory, NASA also closely monitors aspects like InSight
vehicle’s mechanical integrity, communication clarity, capabilities for the descent to Mars
upon arrival, and other important components.
All the while, they make calibrations and fine-tune any necessary issues from back on
Earth.
NASA engineers begin preparing for the approach and descent about 60 days ahead of the scheduled
landing and last until the craft enters Martian atmosphere.
Here, the team focuses primarily on trajectory and the Deep Space Network is put to the test
as the amount of tracking data requested increases substantially in this late phase.
On November 26, 2018, all this preparation and monitoring finally paid off when the InSight
lander touched down on Mars.
It safely made its successful descent onto the scheduled landing site of Elysium Planitia,
an area of the planet chosen for its exceptional stillness and silence, allowing for more accurate
data collection.
#3 Tools Of The Trade Now that the lander has come down to the red
planet’s surface, the payload is unleashed and the InSight mission is finally kicking
into gear.
The lander contains a variety of high-tech instruments to conduct the experiments and
collect the data for transmission back to NASA engineers.
The Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure, for example, is meant to measure seismic activity
on Mars, referred to by NASA as “marsquakes”.
In addition to these precise measurements, the SEIS as its known also records tidal forces
generated by Mars’ moon Phobos.
The Heat Flow and Physical Properties Package is another tool aboard InSight that is used
to delve deep into the ground to gather precise temperature readings from within the planet’s
subsurface, earning it the nickname of “the mole”.
A handful of other instruments on the lander are used to monitor the weather, planetary
spin, and other features of Mars that would give engineers and scientists a better understanding
of the planet’s nature.
Demonstrating the collective effort required for this mission, components for these scientific
tools came from all over the world with contributions from French, Swiss, German, Italian, and British
agencies and businesses.
This just goes to show that the InSight mission is not just for the U.S., but the human race
as a whole.
#2 Project Size The culmination of such a massive project
would never have occurred if it weren’t for the ingenuity and intelligence of the
engineers and scientists that worked on the InSight program.
And there were a ton of them.
Four national agencies teamed to bring this project to life in the French CNES, the German
DLR, the Italian Space Agency and of course the American NASA.
Independent institutions like the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Imperial College of London, Max
Planck Institute for Solar System Research, University of Oxford, and Lockheed Martin
contributed to the project as well.
In all, the InSight mission utilized the brightest minds from 11 different nations, including
Belgium, Poland, Spain and Japan.
To promote this special collaboration, InSight has released a series of videos through NASA
highlighting some members of the team to show off the unique qualifications brought to the
table.
Between the requirements for the launch, the journey, the landing, subsequent data collection,
communications, and even specific members needed for InSights various instruments, hundreds
of individuals were involved.
And after 7 years, they all received a sense of accomplishment in November of 2018 when
the InSight lander finally reached the surface of Mars.
#1 What We Hope To Learn This mission to Mars is unique, not just because
of the size of the project, the international collaboration aspect, or the specifics of
the mission at hand.
In addition to all those factors, the InSight mission proves special in that it will not
just study a single planet or other astronomical bodies, instead focusing on particular issues
occurring throughout solar system science.
Mars is the perfect candidate to study for this information as it’s the right size
to have experienced the early formation process of a terrestrial planet, but small enough
to have retained data on this process not found on Earth.
It’s hoped that by analyzing the big red orb of Mars humans might finally understand
what it takes to create and evolve rocky planets.