InSight Arrives At Launch Site Early
Lockheed Martin Delivers NASA’s InSight Spacecraft to Launch Site
“InSight was previously scheduled to ship to California in early January, but delivery was moved three and a half weeks early to provide more time at the launch site for the integration of the seismometer instrument (SEIS) developed by the French Space Agency, CNES.”
Mars InSight Spacecraft Shipped to California for March Launch, NASA
“A vacuum leak detected during testing of the seismometer was repaired last week in France and is undergoing further testing.”
Payload Problems May Delay Mars InSight Launch (Update), earlier post
“Consideration is being given to delaying the launch of NASA’s Mars InSight lander mission. The problem has to do with the French seismometer. There is a persistent leak inside the seismometer that has been hard to fix.”
They’re still making their launch window, though, right? That’s what is important.
Presuming the French Seismometer make it through testing on schedule.
Actually, I would submit that what is most important is that it work reliably. If that means waiting for the next window, then so be it.
As unfortunate as it would be if it slipped to the next window, it would be even more unfortunate if the launch was rushed and the seismometer failed.
Unfortunately, Discovery missions have a cost cap, a 26 month launch delay can be very expensive (you need much of the pre-launch staff available until post-launch commissioning) and going over the cost cap means a mandatory cancellation review. Discovery missions are not “too big to fail.” This mission really needs to get the instrument fixed, delivered (and delivering to the launch site is not a good sign) and off on time.
IMO, if Insight fail to meet the schedule and miss the current launch window. It should be cancel as soon as possible.
Waiting for the next launch window basically mean you sacrifice the next or next 2 Discovery mission opportunities. Since the extra funding overhead from a delay Insight mission will have have to come out of the existing budget pool.
It is a terrible idea to have only one Discovery mission in a decade funded at New Frontier mission level.
I don’t think I realized that this mission was Discovery class (probably because I criticized it as a fixed-place device and was properly informed that this is entirely appropriate for the data it is to acquire).
Not sure how I missed that. It’s an amazing mission for the money.
It is also a fair example of how hard it is to control budgets for these science missions (discussed in a different thread). So many features are new science or new tech or both that fairly fundamental research is required- materials, or sensors, or whatever; integration is another huge issue very difficult to predict, even with the experience gained to date.
I’ve not found sufficient discussion of the vacuum issue to be able to characterize it.