Mars InSight’s Mole Has Partially Backed Out of Its Hole “After making progress over the past several weeks digging into the surface of Mars, InSight’s mole has backed about halfway out of its hole this past weekend. Preliminary assessments point to unusual soil conditions on the Red Planet. The international mission team is developing the next steps to get it buried again. A scoop on the end of the arm […]

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 project managers recently briefed officials at NASA and France’s space agency, Centre National d’tudes Spatiales (CNES), on a path forward; the […]

Keith’s 10:15 am note: NASA sources report that NASA SMD has decided to cancel the launch of Mars InSight in 2016 due to problems with the French seismometer. There is a design flaw in the instrument – one that prevents it from being able to maintain the vacuum needed to operate on the surface of Mars – or for that capability to be adequately tested prior to launch so as […]

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 […]

Keith’s 3 Dec 10:33 am ET note: 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. Given that this payload is one of the two prime functions of InSight if the issue is not resolved in the next month or so then […]

Proposed Mars Mission Has New Name “A proposed Discovery mission concept led by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., to investigate the formation and evolution of terrestrial planets by studying the deep interior of Mars now has a new name, InSight.” JPL’s InSight: Ignoring The Real Costs – and its MPL Heritage, earlier post “The highly successful Mars Phoenix is (logically) mentioned as a way to claim cost savings. But […]

Keith’s note: According to the official web page for the proposed InSight mission to Mars at NASA JPL: “The InSight mission will fly a near-duplicate of the Mars lander that the Phoenix mission used successfully in 2007 to study ground ice near the north pole of Mars. The reuse of this technology, developed and built by Lockheed-Martin Space Systems in Denver, CO, will provide a low-risk path to Mars without […]