Investigation on Interiors of Red Planet by NASA

NASA’s next spacecraft to Mars, InSight, is under preparation. It is on course for its launch next May from Vandenberg Air Force Base in central California. It will be first interplanetary launch in history from America’s West Coast. The assembling and testing of InSight is done by Lockheed Martin Space Systems.

The testing is performed in a clean room facility near Denver. Stu Spath, spacecraft program manager at Lockheed Martin said that our team resumed system – level integration and test activities. Stu also added that the lander is completed and instruments have been integrated onto it. This is done so that they can complete the final spacecraft testing which includes acoustics, instrument deployments and thermal balance tests. The first mission to deeply focus the interiors of the Mars is InSight. The gathered information will boost their understanding of how all rocky planets like Earth were formed. The interior of Mars has churned much less than our Earth in the past three billion years.

By: Bhavna Sharma

Content: phys.org