the GEMS Discovery finalist has been renamed InSight and now has its own website: http://insight.jpl.nasa.gov/
I was going to say I was amazed that we've reached the point where a Mars lander can be attempted on a Discovery budget. Then I found out that Pathfinder did it too: http://www.marsnews.com/missions/pathfinder/ That got me to wondering how much progress we've made in 20 years. I note that InSight should weigh about 350 kg--almost exactly the same as Pathfinder did.
A side-by-side comparison is a little tough, since InSight is about studying the interior of Mars while Pathfinder was focused on the surface. Also, the info on Insight is a little sketchy (from what I could find). A lot of it's derived from Phoenix, so that's a start I guess.
--Greg
Hmm. I read through the site & the poster, and saw no mention at all of any sort of cameras.
Oh I definitely love the idea of building new probes on proven platforms. I'm just wondering how much more advanced the instruments are now. I realize that's hard to quantify. Maybe just stats like GHz, megabytes, and bits-per-second would be enough. It just seemed that we're putting the same amount of mass on Mars as we did 20 years ago, but I'll bet we're getting 100x the data.
--Greg
Is there a big difference between this mission and the canceled payload for the Exomars lander?
One additional point about cameras... it is essential to know the exact location of a lander - the interpretation of seismic and heat flow data will be very much tied in with knowing what it landed on. Phoenix was located with HiRISE images but we can't guarantee the availability of images with that resolution in 2016. So precise location will depend, at least as a back-up, on locating the lander with respect to horizon features. So some degree of ability to survey the site will be necessary to guarantee the quality of the science. For Phoenix, the RAC camera on the arm was not used as a site-mapping instrument (except underneath the lander), but it could have been, if necessary.
Phil
Here's a completely different question: to get earthquake locations, don't you need three, separated seismic stations? Without location, you don't really have magnitude, do you? What will InSight be able to tell us?
--Greg
You don't need a descent imager to exactly locate a spacecraft on the surface of Mars. We have HiRISE for that.
But we may not have it in 2016. Almost certainly it will land in an area of HiRISE coverage, but surface images may still be needed, as a backup if there is no working HiRISE, to match the site with the orbital images. Without images the best we can expect to locate it would be within 1 or 2 km, but it's still useful to know if you are on a small crater's ejecta deposit, or on one side or the other of a terrain boundary or sediment deposit.
I wondered about a descent camera as well. That would be useful, indeed. I seem to recall the problem last time was about moving the descent camera data into the spacecraft computer during a critical time. Hopefully the next descent camera will have its own memory to make that data transfer unnecessary.
Phil
I think they're some work you can do with direct vs reflected signals to determine distance and range. Also, P and S waves travel at different velocities, assuming their seismograph is sensitive enough, they could roughly determine distance that way. This would, however, not let them determine depth of the hypocenter, unless there's some other aspect they can model.
It really is a shame this will probably be a one-off. Too bad a pair of DS2 seismographs couldn't be dropped off the deck as is falls, even if they land just a few km away they could help with triangulation.
#include <doug_rant_on_tradeoffs.h>
Warning I am not a geologist.
My impression, when I read a short explanation of the mission, was that they were only trying to measure the planets seismic energy. You don't need direction and maybe not even distance for that. Mars doesn't have plate tectonics, as far as I have heard, and I guess the level of seismic energy will say something about the planets core.
Jack
I assume that there is a mission assumption is that the solar panels will continue to suppy power for much more than 90 days. I understand that the Pathfinder lander only lasted 90 days because of a complete lack of cleaning winds. The question that I want to ask is how common are cleaning winds on Mars? Perhaps the only safe landing site for the InSight mission is the Opportunity landing elipse? At least there cleaning winds are guaranteed.
I also wonder how much of its potential payload mass this mission is using? Would it really cost anything for the odd Phoenix instrument to be reflown? I would like to see Lidar reflown to a landing site where it could operate for longer than a very limited 150 days.
Obviously the most important missing instrument is a camera to scan the horizon. Would a pair of black and white Navcams cost much to fly? I guess that Navcams are two a penny given the number of spare Navcams that are flying on MSL.
I'm guessing the mission is more cost-limited than mass-limited. To fit the Discovery cost cap, they can't fly any more instruments. Even if an instrument was donated by a foreign agency or NASA wanted to fly a camera for purely PR purposes, there are mission financial costs associated with that that could be counted against InSight's cost cap.
A few new details about the mission, from Bruce Banerdt at LPSC.
The spacecraft carries a MER hazcam (maybe 2) fixed on the body to give an overview of the instrument deployment area, and a MER navcam (or a pair, more likely) on the arm elbow area for detailed instrument deployment coverage. After instrument deployment, but during the first 60 days, they will use the navcam(s) to do a full panorama and other things like change detection (which might include clouds, dust devils etc.) . Then they go to reduced operations for the rest of the mission, only monitoring the instruments.
Phil
Happy Day!
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/nasa-will-send-robot-drill-to-mars-in-2016/2012/08/20/43bf1980-eaef-11e1-9ddc-340d5efb1e9c_story.html
Bravo JPL!
Awesome! Mars! I can't remember the last time we landed there!
Good one, Hungry! I would have liked any of them but I'm especially interested in this one.
Phil
press release http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2012/aug/HQ_12-288-New_Discovery_Mars_Mission.html
interesting... the German heat probe "mole" will be based on Beagle 2's PLUTO mole
http://www.dlr.de/irs/en/desktopdefault.aspx/tabid-5960/10970_read-25032/
That's cool - PLUTO was an awesome and cunning little piece of kit.
Does seem like a shame that only one copy of this spacecraft will fit into the Discovery cost envelope. A seismometer network would provide some very interesting data.
From Bruce Betts blog on PS...
and BTW. Is there a word about where it should be landing?
[/quote]
This is a good question. Do you aim at an average safe area of mars, or go for tharsis looking for heat from the interior and quakes?
Given the high elevation at Tharsis, I'd guess you don't go there, especially if you're using Phoenix heritage equipment. That's what the illustration suggests.
Maybe Elysium instead? Oh, what I'd give to finally see a martian volcano from the surface, no matter how distant....
And yes, a color camera should get some serious consideration. I mean Phoenix had one, so why downgrade?
I was thinking Elysium as well, but Elysium PLANITIA
I think they are going to go for a nice flat and featureless site (sight?).
They are taking a Phoenix weather package with them I believe, including that telltale that was sich a cute feature of that mission.
P
Forget pretty pics, the science is literally underground.
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2012-252
http://insight.jpl.nasa.gov/
Launch March 8 - March 27, 2016
Seismic package, 5m deep drill, and two cameras!
I don't know if there are other candidates.
There was a poster on the landing site at LPSC in March. I spoke to Bruce about it at the time.
The site has to be low elevation for EDL and near the equator for good solar power throughout the mission. Matt Golombek and colleagues identified suitable areas in Valles Marineris, the southern Chryse channel areas (well south of Chryse itself), Isidis and Elysium Planitia. Only the last area worked well for their needs, especially latitude. They identified about a dozen ellipses and chose one at the centre of the area as a starting point for the proposal. Now they will do a detailed analysis with HiRISE to pick the best one. One drawback - it's not far from Gale and may have some communication overlap issues (Gale itself was chosen partly to avoid that overlap with Opportunity, as all other MSL sites were near Opportunity's longitude). But that can be dealt with.
And about cameras - I think they plan to use off the shelf spares of MER Hazcam and Navcam to save money. So changes are out unless you fancy doing a Kickstarter for them. And the cameras are only needed for characterization and documentation for instrument deployment - nice flat area for the seismometer and a suitable spot for the drill. After that they will collect a full panorama for outreach and site context, but then (after about 60 days) they are shut off to save money - allowing a smaller team to simply monitor the other data rather than construct data collection sequences all the time. Everything is going to be about keeping costs down.
Phil
Mars Geophysical network options with anywhere from 1 to 4 stations have been studied. This passage seems to say it all:
"Although a network of four or more stations would be ideal, fewer stations could still provide much of the necessary information for addressing the science objectives described above. There are many analysis techniques that have been developed for seismology, particularly in the last decade that could extract interior information from seismic measurements at fewer stations, or even a single station. One seismic station could use techniques such as P-S/back-azimuth tracing to provide locations, multiple phase arrivals (P, S, PmP, PcP, PKP, etc.) to derive interior velocities and boundary depths, receiver function and surface wave analysis to delineate crust and upper mantle structure, and Phobos tide measurements and possibly normal mode observations to constrain core size and state. Two stations constitute a substantial improvement in capability, providing correlation capacity for unambiguous identification of seismic events, an improved ability to compute surface wave phase velocity, and noise correlation techniques that can provide planetary structure from background noise analysis while strengthening the interpretation of the single-station techniques described above. A three-station network has the additional advantage that it could provide event locations using conventional P-wave arrival techniques combined with a limited set of a priori assumptions.
For this study a two-station network of seismometers is considered the minimum network size to address the baseline science of MGN for a New Frontiers class mission. However, single station missions were also investigated, as they would provide science value commensurate with Discovery class missions."
Source: http://ia700504.us.archive.org/26/items/MarsGeophysicalNetworkOptions/11_Mars-Network-Options-Final.pdf
A http://www.universetoday.com/93843/nasas-proposed-insight-lander-would-peer-to-the-center-of-mars-in-2016/#ixzz24E6KTJ6U stated that the landing site will be in Elysium Planitia: “Our planned landing site is in Elysium Planitia,” Banerdt told me. “It was chosen for optimizing engineering safety margins for landing and power.”
In emails with Banerdt, he told me that the lander will carry some meteorology instruments to characterize the effect of wind and temperature on the seismic instrument.
I suppose that (re)flying the Planetary Society's Mars mike is out of the question?
Any word on a launch vehicle? An Atlas V seems kind of overkill.
cool video on the German heat probe
http://www.dlr.de/dlr/en/Portaldata/1/Resources/videos/2012/hp3_640x320.mp4
Remember too, if you start saying "Hey, with a bigger booster we can add..." and go down that road, then you're getting into unproven EDL realms, you have to re-do your parachute, your landing strategies, etc., etc.
And then your proven, lowest-risk bid of "We already know the Phoenix architecture works, so we'll just duplicate it" becomes something entirely different.
I hear they are still building Delta II's...
-the other Doug
Yep, I guess that the TPS microphone would be the only extra they could afford since it was already on MPL i.e. Phoenix concept... and this will not require a rocket change
Taking another look at the animation video it appears that like Phoenix, InSight will not have a high gain antenna and will be completely reliant on orbiter relay for telecommunications. It has already been mentioned up thread that we shouldn't rely on MRO for landing location identification, should we really rely on it for data?
Following on from the earlier active seismic experiment suggestion, would the following idea have any merit whatsoever?
By the time InSight has landed on Mars the Falcon Heavy should have started operations. Falcon Heavy has a TMI capability of approx 17 tonnes
(mininum energy). Let's say that you want something better than minimum energy (as the aim is to maximize the velocity with which the impactor spacecraft intercepts Mars) and restrict the spacecraft to a mere 10 tonnes. Maybe a shorter direct flight would be best to set this up, maybe something more intricate involving multiple Venus & Earth 'gravity assists' would be preferable. Anyway, the capability exists, what about the spacecraft? I suppose it must be the opposite of most EDL designs. By this I mean that the aim is not to safely decelerate your vehicle but to smash into the ground with as much of the velocity you entered the atmosphere with as possible. Rather than a wide gumdrop shape you would want a sleek aerodynamic cylindrical shape like a rocket. You would want to enter the atmosphere perpendicular to the surface of the planet. You would favour high altitude regions over low altitude ones. Lastly, you would want a vehicle that is as dense as can be achieved. I suggest making the impactor out of depleted uranium because it's much cheaper than tungsten. So, a ten tonne metal cylinder hitting the surface of Mars at tens of km/s. Should make a nice bang!
For a twofer, the spacecraft could be targeted to mid-latitude areas suspected of having ice within metres of the surface and the resultant impact crater could be examined by HiRISE.
Couple things here to keep in mind:
1. F9 Heavy hasn't even flown yet.
2. F9 non-heavy hasn't been contracted to fly any NASA UMSF missions at all to date.
3. Anything intentionally landing or impacting on Mars has to comply with PPP (planetary protection protocols). Sterilizing an upper booster stage to this degree in probably not at all practical.
Not trying to rain on the parade, just think that we should confine this discussion to what InSight is really going to be capable of doing.
We already know from the fresh craters found by CTX et.al. that we don't have to wait long for mother nature to do exactly that anyway.
There is something confusing to me. On January 17th 2007 (as I've said in another topic) I ran into (MER and) MSL EDL team in LAX. I spoke with Miguel San Martin as follows:
- So, how everything’s going?
- Well, we’re working on the next one (he sew through my eyes that I was not sure of which next one he was talking about)
- That’s MSL.
This was 7 months before Phoenix Launched and 16 months before it landed on Mars. So I assumed at this time that this team (Adam Steltzner’s) was NOT in charge of Phoenix EDL.
Now my understanding is that, after Curiosity landing, this very team has no longer any work…but this information came before InSight selection... but the above conversation make me think they are not involved.
So my basic question is: does somebody know who’s in charge of InSight EDL?
There are a lot of issues on the deliberate-thump and impact sounding of Mars.
Impacts are part of the plan (not like we could do anything to stop them!) and one mission objective is to determine the impactor flux at Mars. Of course, many impacts are filtered out by the atmosphere. Perhaps nearby impacts that don't reach the ground will be detected (that kinetic energy goes somewhere).
Deliberate-thump is not part of the plan. One issue is that the landed hardware has to be set up in time for the thump, and previous landers' moving parts usually haven't gotten moving in the minutes after landing. So there'd be a bit of complexity in getting the thumper to arrive where you want it but after a delay, OR force the seismometer to be deployed very rapidly (which is subject to error; Spirit and Phoenix both had hiccoughs).
Note that Phobos tides will be another form of known stress. These will be much weaker than lunar tides on Earth, but they expect to detect them. Tidal stress is generally reckoned to follow the inverse cube of distance, and Phobos is very close to Mars. However, the equations I've seen may have been derived assuming distance >> planetary radius, which is not the case for Phobos and Mars. In any event, the tides are non-negligible.
Hi All,
On the subject of Phobos tides, one factor that should promote their detectability is that
they occur at a precisely known frequency (since the location of the source - Phobos -
as a function of time and the period of its orbit is known). If one then stacks up the data
over time at the same frequency, the signal would eventually rise out of the noise.
Of course, "eventually" may be a month, a year or longer.
Tolis.
Here's a piece about the seismometer which will fly on InSight. Given the >4 decade interval, it may not be surprising that it is more sensitive than the lunar seismometers in the ALSEPs. The Viking seismometer was less sensitive than the ALSEPs, as Viking had much more severe mass limits than Apollo.
http://www.kit.edu/visit/pi_2012_11447.php
I suppose that any metrics of the equipment also depend on the planet. How well the local regolith allows the seismometer to couple, and how well the planet propagates waves are factors beyond our control. Also, winds will blow against InSight, which was no concern on the Moon.
a few (small) pics of the seismometer on the blog of the French team that is developing it
http://ganymede.ipgp.jussieu.fr/gsp-blog/
scroll down to the 1 June (1 juin) entry
Hi!
Does anyone have a link to the August 20 phone conference when InSight was announced?
Thanks!
Hello – two layperson questions about InSight’s seismometer:
One, will the instrument be able to collect data at night? Or, will the craft’s power budget rule that out?
Two, can someone offer a sense of how sensitive will the seismometer be? How small a Marsquake could it measure (could that measurement be expressed in the Richer scale?)?
Thanks!
Thanks! BTW, in a odd twist of timing, I just finished "Titan Unveiled" this morning! A very enjoyable read, and very cool timing with your reply!
Apparently the general region for landing has been narrowed down, Elysium Planitia, though the 16 candidate sites need to be narrowed down
according to the PI.
http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n1303/30insight
Hopefully whichever has a volcano on the horizon is the one, for those of us who like topography
Edit: should've searched the previous pages. I thought the article was more than just a rehash, sorry for the bump.
From 16 down to 4. More detail on the exact requirements.
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2013-269
Unfortunately they don't mention which four ellipses have been chosen. For more information you might like to look at this presentation (penultimate slide) from the recent MEPAG virtual meeting:
http://mepag.jpl.nasa.gov/meeting/jul-13/files/Banerdt%202013-0732%20MEPAG.pdf
(rest of the meeting is here):
http://mepag.jpl.nasa.gov/meeting/jul-13/index.html
Phil
Why does the JPL article use "yards" ?
Because they are written for Americans. The original text probably said 'meters' and it was translated into the nearest non-metric equivalent. Usually they add a metric equivalent as well, as they did for ellipse sizes.
Phil
I expect competition between UMSF regulars to see who can produce the best colourization of the imagery! :-)
Launch vehicle + site chosen: An Atlas 5 from Vandenburg! Apparently going to be the first California launch to Mars...
http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n1312/19insight
a Vandenberg launch was also initially planned for the Mars Surveyor Orbiter 2001 (later renamed Mars Odyssey). it had something to do with the required high inclination of the parking orbit. IIRC Mars Odyssey passed over the UK after launch and the third stage fired over Italy (45 North).
Insight is launching 15 years after that, and the relative positions of Earth and Mars repeat every 15-17 years (for example "great oppositions" in 1971, 1988, 2003 and 2018), so I think that the reason for the Vandenberg launch is the same.
I know there are others who know the orbital mechanics far better, and I'm sure this is documented elsewhere on the web, but I was curious. So I used the tools from http://www.cdeagle.com/html/interplanet.html to create some porkchop plots centered on the nominal departure/arrival dates for InSight. Sure enough, there is a high declination (DLA of ~45 deg) for the departure.
the French space agency CNES has just published this cool video (mostly in French) on their seismometer for InSight
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3IOKszmnyo
It looks that InSight is now planned with color camera on the arm!
Source (page 9): http://mepag.jpl.nasa.gov/meeting/2014-05/17_Golombek%20MEPAG%20InSight.pdf
Yes, that's more accurate but isn't "If this program is successful and on time" true for every planned mission after all?
EDIT: BTW, Thanks for correction. I wrote this news in hurry, because I was too excited about this.
I hope that they will be successful with this "plan".
InSight appears to be focussed on deep structures and the core. All the other landers look down only a few centimeters.
Is anything in planning to examine the top few tens of meters, perhaps by ground penetrating radar? I am not so interested in how Mars got the way it is, but in locating good spots for human development. For example, empty lava tubes or accessible aquifers.
For that you really want a mobile vehicle, not a static lander. So not on Insight, but I think GPR has been considered for future missions. One day we'll probably see it.
Phil
The ExoMars rover will have a GPR called WISDOM. Although DAN on Curiosity isn't a GPR, AFAIK it kind of acts like one, exploring the water content in hydrated minerals as well as observing it in the liquid or ice states to a depth of a few feet as the rover drives.
InSight mission enters ATLO phase: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=4377
Landing site evaluation and spacecraft development... update
http://www.nasa.gov/jpl/insight/single-site-on-mars-advanced-for-2016-nasa-lander/#.VPe6TbEWK_Q
the French space agency has delivered the qualification model of its seismometer to JPL (in French) http://www.cnes.fr/web/CNES-fr/6115-communiques-de-presse.php?item=9796
lots of nice hardware pictures of InSight undergoing tests
http://insight.jpl.nasa.gov/newsdisplay.cfm?Subsite_News_ID=37975
There's been no news about the Planetary Society managing to getting that microphone on board, has there?
It's not onboard.
But it will be accompanied by two cute little cubesats:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/cubesat/missions/marco.php
Phil
Send your name to Mars aboard the NASA InSight lander:
http://mars.nasa.gov/participate/send-your-name/insight/
The deadline is September 8 (midnight, ET)
Instrument leak problem identified and fixed: still go for launch!
http://www.space.com/31326-nasa-insight-mars-lander-sensor-fix.html
If you follow the development side of planetary exploration long enough (especially the books on missions later written by insiders), last minute hiccups like this are common. In this case, it looks like rigorous testing did its job and found a problem to be fixed. Whew!
launch reportedly canceled (or delayed):
http://nasawatch.com/archives/2015/12/nasa-will-not-b.html
Most reports are that it is delayed until the next launch window in two years, as they could not repair a critical defect in time for the March launch.
http://www.popularmechanics.com/space/moon-mars/news/a18689/nasas-next-mars-insight-shelved/
Telecon link here: http://www.nasa.gov/news/media/newsaudio/index.html
Wow what a bummer.
Yep, it sucks but just like Curiosity, better to do it right after a wait then do it wrong without one. A leak on Earth is obviously better than a leak up there, right?
Awww darn. After initially being disappointed that TiME lost out to this mission I was actually getting excited about the mission science. Still, as Emily has pointed out, if she goes in 2018 it will fill a quiet period in the planetary launch schedule and I'd forgotten that ESA is going to Mars next year, so better safe than sorry.
Also in 2016 - Juno!
P
Just to be clear, InSight will be reviewed and it may be either cancelled or delayed.
If it is delayed, then it is unlikely that NASA will be able to select two Discovery proposals in the current competition as it had hoped. So we likely will lose a Discovery mission either way.
Sometimes, crap happens and it very often happens in the simplest, low tech elements. InSight got unlucky.
Yep, and honestly, finding a flaw before launch is the best case scenario; there's still a good chance that some great science will result. DSCOVR had it way worse, and look where it is now!
Or contrast Insight's situation with CONTOUR...
I would like NASA to use the 2 Year delay to add other instruments to the deck of the Insight deck such as a spare of the Phoenix LIDAR experiment that presumably exists. I think that additional meteorology experiments would help round out the instrument payload of the Insight mission.
I think that if the Opportunity rover was to deteriorate further over the next Year then there would be an argument to park Opportunity close to its current position on a North facing slope to carry out the delayed Insight radio science experiment for the next 2 Years. Opportunity has already performed a successful 6 months radio science stint 4 Years ago which showed Opportunity's value in that role.
In retrospect the idea of leaving Spirit parked on a North facing slope and re-purposing Spirit for radio science role after the last winter that she survived on Mars might have been a good idea given the trouble that Spirit had in roving during the last Summer that she was still working.
Removing something is still 'work' so it would still cost money to do anything beyond the storage. Too bad; it would have been nice to add that Mars microphone at last.
Perhaps the 2020 rover....
So what happens to the readied Atlas V that they were going to launch with in this sort of case?
I also don't understand how the contractor that was supposed to deliver the SEIS instrument isn't on the hook for any costs of redesigning that instrument plus damages.
The SEIS sphere isn't built by a contractor but by CNES itself. Given that SEIS is an instrument provided to the mission for free (to NASA) no damages are caused (to NASA) if it doesn't work. If they decide not to fly while it's not working that's NASA's problem.
This construct stems from the fact that NASA paid for less than 25% of the instruments for InSight in order to save cost (under the cost cap for the mission) - and it will probably be the last mission with excessive non-NASA instrumentation. CNES' SEIS cost $42 million alone, DLR's HP³ (based on Philae's MUPUS) another $19 million. NASA spent $18 million on the RISE radio experiment (using the lander's x-band link), a robotic arm to deploy SEIS and HP³ in a number of places around it and - to track the arm's movement - two b/w cameras.
One primary reason that's not possible is that new instruments require not only testing of said instruments but also integration and testing with (and of) the entire spacecraft. New equipment introduces new interdependencies, some of which can be unexpected, difficult to detect, and detrimental. Obviously this increases not only mission risk but also cost--significantly.
Also, it's generally not an easy proposition to shuffle money between programs. It's been done, but it's not done lightly, and I suspect that InSight would only ask for something like that to save the mission from outright cancellation--definitely not to add new instrumentation.
This is vaguely reminiscent of the problems that Dawn had during its development cycle:
http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?showtopic=1645
However, InSight has a problem with what is unambiguously its main instrument. You can't downscope that instrument away, or you'd be eliminating the purpose of the mission.
Apparently, the project has been given a path forward towards the next launch opportunity: http://spaceref.com/mars/nasa-targets-may-2018-launch-of-mars-insight-mission.html
To those knowledgeable about such things, How likely is it that CNES actually gets the instrument working according to specifications?
I wonder if the landing ellipse will change now... as happened with Schiaparelli for its 2 month delay.
Phil
The MEPAG meeting at the beginning of March had an InSight update that gave some information on the history of the seismometer problems, as well as several photos of problem areas. The Mepag presentations are at http://mepag.jpl.nasa.gov/meetings.cfm?expand=m29. The newest meeting is #31, scroll down to the presentation titled "InSight Mission". Slides 11 through 15 are about the seismic instrument. Lots of other interesting talks also listed.
InSight cleared for May 2018 launch. Godspeed.
http://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/nasa-approves-2018-launch-of-mars-insight-mission
Good seismometer news, passed vacuum testing. https://spaceflightnow.com/2017/03/28/insight-landers-troubled-seismometer-passes-major-test/
Leak free!
Ayy! This is good news indeed!
A second chip full of names is going on the craft (one benefit of the delay, I guess); anyone who missed it the first round can put their name in now: https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=6959
an entire issue of Space Science Reviews dedicated to InIsght
https://link.springer.com/journal/11214/211/1
too bad most of the papers are beyond the paywall
This inevitably jumps thread topic, but it's too bad that journals use a firewall/pay system, when their actual "market" is so small and the price for an article is extremely high. For the amateur science enthusiast, the economics make participation impossible, which is not anyone's intention.
But in this case, there is a solution. Try a Google search for the names of the authors + the subject, and you can find free preprints in many cases.
https://arxiv.org/abs/1704.05664
Enjoy!
Now that InSight is nearing a sort of endgame (though hopefully the end is not close), I wonder about future missions to explore the same objectives. One of InSight's two instruments was never deployed. The seismometer was an engineering success, but in addition to the science, we learned of challenges in terms of wind and noise. There is obviously room for future science that could be as simple as flying a modified repeat of InSight with optimizations to deploy successfully a heat probe and a seismometer with a bit more safeguard against wind. Other upgrades could include multiple landers to permit triangulation of quake location and/or longer life.
I hope there's some follow up of this kind, perhaps involving programs other than NASA. The ESA and Chinese rovers to Mars, as well as the UAE and Indian orbiters seem to launch all these many space programs on Mars science pathways similar to NASA's when there is so much room to take a different pathway and return more original science.
The Russian platform that will deliver the ExoMars 2022 land will carry a seismometer, weather station, and other instruments. Unless InSight gets a serious dust cleaning, I question whether it will make concurrent measurements
Great points. I am reminded again of the PhD student in geology who told me in earnest that "the problem is" (for his research) that there aren't enough big earthquakes. I'm not sure that most people agree when it comes to Earth, but for Mars it may be true.
It's largely a matter of waiting for a large enough impact, right? With the lunar seismometers, there was the advantage of a large chunk of metal hitting at high speed at a known time and place, in the form of the upper stage impacts. In their absence (at least for now, Mars may start getting hit a bit harder in the medium term!), patience is the name of the game.
Maybe with the Vera Rubin Observatory coming on-line we'll get a chance to detect a Mars impactor before it hits, and send a few landers beforehand. It has sub-km detection capabilities out to the Main Belt.
https://www.lsst.org/scientists/publications/asteroid-discovery-and-characterization-large-synoptic-survey-telescope-lsst#:~:text=With%20a%20single%20visit%20limiting,down%20to%20sub%2Dkilometer%20sizes.
I see an estimate that the Tunguska Event would have been about a Richter 5.0 so the occurrence of impacts on Mars bigger than the quakes already recorded might be frustratingly rare, or subject to rare good luck. And, while an impact can tell you a lot about how the planetary bell rings, it doesn't give you the information that a quake does about endogenous activity.
Powered by Invision Power Board (http://www.invisionboard.com)
© Invision Power Services (http://www.invisionpower.com)