The mission’s budget from NASA was originally $675 million, but it will now exceed $800 million. NASA said the delay and rework will add $153.8 million to InSight’s cost. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory will take over redesigning and testing the seismometer enclosure, while CNES will remain in charge of developing the sensors themselves, integration of the sensors into the container, and final installation of the instrument on the lander, the space agency said in a statement. In this image, the arm works with an engineering model of the seismometer instrument package. InSight’s robotic arm will place the seismometer instrument on the surface of Mars to detect quakes. Under a new plan approved by NASA leaders last week, InSight will lift off on an Atlas 5 rocket from Vandenberg in May 2018 during the next Mars launch opportunity, which comes every 26 months or so. No mission has detected “marsquakes” before, but instrumentation left behind by the Apollo astronauts discovered such tremors on the moon. The seismometer instrument will be able to measure ground movements as small as half the radius of a hydrogen atom, NASA said, to sense minor shaking that may originate deep inside Mars. The problem that cropped up last year occurred as French engineers tried to feed electrical cables through ports on the enclosure and seal the container for flight, but the ground team could not overcome persistent leaks. The instrument’s three main sensors reside inside a vacuum enclosure the size of a volleyball to shield them from the dust, wind and other hazards in the Martian atmosphere. The seismometer is central to InSight’s primary science goals - studying the structure of Mars’ interior and unraveling how the solar system’s rocky planets formed - so officials elected last December to delay the launch to fix the issue. The French space agency, CNES, is in charge of developing the seismic instrument package for InSight. Officials said the problem’s root was in sealing an airtight vacuum enclosure containing the seismic sensors. But engineers ran into trouble testing one of the stationary lander’s science instruments, a seismometer to be placed on the Martian surface to detect tremors and quakes. InSight is the next Discovery-class mission to launch, and it was supposed to head for Mars in March from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California. Lucy, a probe to tour multiple Trojan asteroids in orbital lockstep with Jupiter.Near Earth Object Camera (NEOCam), an observatory to detect and study potentially hazardous asteroids and comets that could threaten Earth.Psyche, a mission to the solar system’s most massive metallic asteroid.The Venus Emissivity, Radio Science, InSAR, Topography, and Spectroscopy mission (VERITAS), a Venus radar mapper.Deep Atmosphere Venus Investigation of Noble gases, Chemistry, and Imaging (DAVINCI), a project to send an entry probe into the atmosphere of Venus.The winning mission - or missions - must launch by the end of 2021, under the terms of the competition set by NASA. ![]() The science teams behind each concept are currently working on their final proposals, after each mission received a $3 million NASA grant to advance their plans. The candidates are all focused on Venus or asteroid research, and Yoder said he expects to pick one of the missions to proceed into full development in December. Earlier or ongoing Discovery missions include the Dawn spacecraft at the dwarf planet Ceres, and NASA’s MESSENGER probe that became the first craft to orbit Mercury. NASA picked five finalists last year for the space agency’s next Discovery-class mission, a series of cost-capped projects to explore the solar system. Credit: NASA/JPL-CaltechĪ $150 million cost overrun and two-year launch delay for NASA’s InSight Mars mission could mean fewer opportunities for new planetary science missions in the next few years, but the head of the agency’s science division said this week NASA will still approve development of at least one new solar system probe in December.Īnd perhaps even two new missions, according to Geoffrey Yoder, acting associate administrator for NASA’s science mission directorate. Artist’s concept of the InSight lander on Mars.
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