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NASA Mars Lander to Explore Red Planet

The American space agency NASA recently approvedplans for building a new Mars lander. NASA officials want the new lander tostudy the deep interior, or inside surface, of the Red Planet.

The new project is called InSight. The name comes from a much longer term: The Interior Exploration Using Seismic Investigations Geodesy and HeatTransport. NASA officials plan to launch the Mars lander from the VandenbergAir Force Base in California in March of 2016. It is expected to arrive on Marssix months later.

This image shows an artist rendition of the proposed InSight Lander. After driving all around Mars with four rovers, NASA wants to look deep into the guts of the red planet.

Bruce Banerdt works at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California. He is the InSight’s lead investigator. He says some of the technology the Marslander will use on Mars is similar to what scientists have been using to studyEarth.

“The idea behind it is to use some geophysical instruments, mostly aseismometer and a heat-flow probe to better understand the interior structureof Mars, both its composition, layering what’s going on inside, stuff like that.”

Bruce Banerdt says InSight’s study of Mars may provide new informationabout how our own planet was created. He says it may also tell about otherEarth-like planets.

“We really want to understand how the terrestrial planets, the rocky planets,formed early on in the solar system, and how that formation sort of led to thekinds of conditions we have on the surface.”

NASA officials have no plans to send the new lander on trips across the RedPlanet. The InSight will instead be sent to an area near the Martian equator. It will stay there to carry out research.

Bruce Banerdt says the lander will gather information about the geography, the natural and physical qualities, of the inner planet.

“And by that I mean how thick is the crust, what’s the crust made out of? Andthen how big is the core, and what is it made out of? What are the thermalcharacteristics of everything in terms of the heat flow, energy production? Things like that.”

The spacecraft will carry a number of new instruments on the trip.

The space agencies of four European countries are providing two of the mostimportant tools. One is a seismometer that will measure and study seismicwaves that shake the ground. Another tool is a heat-flow probe that will reachabout 4 ½ to 5 meters under the Martian surface. The device will measuresmall increases in temperature as it digs underground.

Bruce Banerdt says this tool will help scientists find how much heat is comingfrom the interior.

“This heat flow is what drives a lot of the geology: it drives volcanism. OnMars, it can drive uplift of mountain ranges and so the amount of heat comingout of it is a basic parameter that we need to learn in order to find out howactive a planet is.”

The new Mars lander will also be equipped with a weather station and acamera. Insight’s work is expected to last about one Mars year or two Earthyears. I’m Jonathan Evans.