InSight, MarCO-A, MarCO-B - Atlas V 401 - Vandenberg SLC-3E - 05.05.2018 - 11:05 UTC

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Имxотеп

Немного из истории марсианской сейсмологии.

 
ЦитироватьПервые сейсмические наблюдения на Марсе были проведены в конце 70-х годов прошлого столетия, когда на поверхности Красной планеты совершили посадку два аппарата «Викинг» с сейсмическими станциями на борту. Сейсмологи надеялись оценить фон микросейсм, зарегистрировать местные, а если повезет, то и далекие марсотрясения, изучить особенности волновой картины. Это позволило бы установить, на что больше похож Марс − на Землю (где бывают четкие вступления волн от границ разделов) или на Луну (где сейсмограмма имеет большую длительность, а в интерференции трудно выделить фазы, соответствующие отдельным границам). Первый сейсмометр, совершивший посадку на равнине Хриса, не распаковался и не включил питание. Зато второй − на равнине Утопия − работал в течение 19 земных месяцев, с 4 сентября 1976 г по 3 апреля 1978 г. Однако, в одной точке, за полтора года, при сильном ветре выполнить эти задачи оказалось непросто, результаты получены минимальные, но даже они позволяют сделать далеко идущие выводы.
Сейсмометр вел регистрацию на плоской, каменистой равнине усеянной камнями разной величины и формы и покрытой тонкодисперсным слоем реголита. Опоры «Викинга 2» углубились в грунт на несколько сантиметров, аппарат (по данным наклономера) стоял неровно и покачивался под порывами ветра. Собственно прибор располагался над одной из опор на высоте 1 м от поверхности. Сейсмическая станция включала в себя трехкомпонентный сейсмометр, усилители, фильтры, магнитную память, автоматику для выделения, сжатия во времени, калибровки и передачи сигнала на Землю. Размер станции 12 × 12 × 15 см, вес 2,2 кг, потребляемая мощность − 3,5 Вт. Сейсмометры − электродинамические приборы, настроенные на регистрацию скорости смещения, их резонансная частота 4 Гц, затухание 0.6, частотный диапазон регистрации 0,1−10 Гц, максимальное увеличение тракта 218000 (на частоте 3 Гц), минимально различимый сигнал - 2 мкм на 3 Гц и 10 мкм на 1 Гц. Марсианский сейсмометр был в 70 раз «грубее» лунного, его чувствительность соответствует фону микросейсм при тихой погоде на Земле. Первая сейсмограмма с Марса была передана 4 сентября 1976 г. В момент включения сейсмометра на Земле было 00 ч 53 мин 01 с по Гринвичу − миг рождения марсианской сейсмологии. Первые 62 марсианских дня наблюдения шли 6 дневными сериями в разных режимах. Когда Марс на 40 дней зашел за Солнце, регистрация велась в ждущем режиме. Передача на Землю сначала шла каждые сутки, в дальнейшем − дважды в неделю. Порывы ветра фиксировались независимо метеоприборами и сейсмометрами, их можно было сравнивать.
Основной источник микросейсм на Марсе − ветер. Отмечены суточные и сезонные вариации направления и скорости ветра марсианским летом. Первые 60 суток наблюдений самыми тихими были ночные часы с 18 ч (2 ч после захода Солнца) до 4 утра, скорость ветра не превышала 1−2 м/с (она фиксировалась только метеодатчиками – порог сейсмической чувствительности составил 3 м/с). С восходом Солнца ветровые эффекты усиливались, порывы длились 1−3 мин, создавая помехи, между ними на 10−50 мин устанавливалось затишье. Ветреная погода на равнине Утопия преобладала все полтора года сейсмических наблюдений, лишь около 3 месяцев в сумме были тихими. На 12-е марсианские сутки была получена сейсмограмма импульсного вида, потом на 23-е, 42-е, 49-е и так вплоть до заветного 80-го дня − 6 ноября 1976 г. Восемь «кандидатов» претендовали на то, чтобы представлять марсианскую сейсмичность, и лишь одна запись выдержала «экзамен» − остальные не «пропустили» метеоданные (сейсмические импульсы пришлись на сильные порывы ветра). И хотя 6 ноября метеодатчик не работал, так что независимых измерений скорости ветра не было, сейсмологи единодушно решили, что эта запись - марсотрясение.



Оснований для такого вывода несколько. Во-первых, событие произошло ранним утром (в 3:00), когда обычно было безветренно. Во-вторых, вступление имело довольно высокую частоту (4,8 Гц), тогда как у ветровых импульсов она не превышала 3,0−3,9 Гц. А главное, вид сигнала, его изменение во времени очень напоминали записи, полученные в южной Калифорнии с аппаратурой «Викинг» во время ее «тренировки» на Земле. Одна из таких записей - запись афтершока землетрясения в Сан-Фернандо (1971 г.) магнитудой 3,0 на расстоянии 65 км. Другая - запись химического взрыва (102 т.) в карьере Корона (эквивалентная магнитуде 2,5) на удалении 69 км. Из этой уникальной марсианской записи удалось «выудить» вступления продольной и − через 13 с − поперечной волны. Если в качестве первого приближения считать, что в марсианской коре волны бегут с той же скоростью, что и в земной, и что сейсмический толчок произошел вблизи поверхности, можно определить эпицентральное расстояние - 110 км. Измеренная амплитуда поперечной волны соответствует магнитуде в очаге 2,8 по шкале Рихтера, если действительно рассеяние и поглощение волн в марсианской коре похожи на земные. На записи вертикального прибора вслед за интенсивной поперечной волной отчетливо видны еще два вступления, запаздывающие на 10 с. Если считать, что поперечная волна бежит со скоростью 3,5 км/с, то эти особенности записи могут быть объяснены двукратным отражением от границы на глубине порядка 15 км. Что это за граница? Соответствует ли она земной границе Мохо - разделу между корой и мантией? Ведь на карте, построенной по гравитационным аномалиям Буге в предположении, что средняя мощность коры Марса 40 км, а перепад плотности между корой и мантией 0,6 г/см3, региону равнины Утопия соответствуют глубины границы порядка 15−20 км. Но поскольку запись единственная, такое заключение неоднозначно. Даже для Луны, для которой сейсмограмм имеется гораздо больше, природа границы в коре еще не объяснена.
По (единственной) записи марсотрясения удалось сделать первые оценки сейсмической активности Марса. На Земле происходит ежегодно 45 землетрясений с магнитудой 6,5. Если бы Марс был так же активен, как Земля, то, учитывая его меньшие размеры, ежегодно можно было бы ожидать 13 таких толчков, в среднем по одному в месяц. Однако, за три месяца их замечено не было, зафиксировано всего одно событие с магнитудой около трех. Это достаточное основание заключить, что либо Марс сейсмически пассивнее Земли, либо равнина Утопия (и вообще «океаническая» половина планеты) асейсмична. Из общих соображений и аналогии с Землей именно так и должно быть, т.е. сейсмически более интересными на Марсе оказываются континентальные, особенно − вулканические, регионы. Туда-то и направятся будущие сейсмические экспедиции. И когда удастся поставить сейсмометры непосредственно на грунт (а то и заглубить в него), чувствительность приборов возрастет на два-три порядка, так что даже за такое краткое сейсмическое «дежурство» удастся получить более выразительную картину местной сейсмичности.

Mark

Земля - это колыбель разума, но нельзя вечно жить в колыбели. Ц.К.Э

 

Mark

На InSight будет Франция и тоже Германски сеисмометр SEIS: 

ЦитироватьКосмическое агентство NASA США и французского космического агентства CNES (центра национального d ' космических исследований) совместно работают над следующей миссии Марс. Глава НАСА Чарльз Болден и президент КНЕС, Жан-Ив Ле желчного, подписали соответствующее соглашение в отеле Вашингтон в понедельник (по местному времени).
Космическое агентство NASA США и французского космического агентства CNES (центра национального d ' космических исследований) совместно работают над следующей миссии Марс. Глава НАСА Чарльз Болден и президент КНЕС, Жан-Ив Ле желчного, подписали соответствующее соглашение в отеле Вашингтон в понедельник (10.02.2014)

http://derstandard.at/1389859963445/USA-und-Frankreich-planen-an-gemeinsamer-Mars-Mission-fuer-2016
http://www.mps.mpg.de/315819/Insight_SEIS
Земля - это колыбель разума, но нельзя вечно жить в колыбели. Ц.К.Э

 

che wi

Construction to Begin on 2016 NASA Mars Lander
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2014-156

ЦитироватьNASA and its international partners now have the go-ahead to begin construction on a new Mars lander, after it completed a successful Mission Critical Design Review on Friday.

NASA's Interior Exploration Using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport (InSight) mission will pierce beneath the Martian surface to study its interior. The mission will investigate how Earth-like planets formed and developed their layered inner structure of core, mantle and crust, and will collect information about those interior zones using instruments never before used on Mars.

InSight will launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base, on the central California coast near Lompoc, in March 2016. This will be the first interplanetary mission ever to launch from California. The mission will help inform the agency's goal of sending a human mission to Mars in the 2030s.

InSight team leaders presented mission design results last week to a NASA review board, which then gave approval for advancing to the next stage of preparation.

Спойлер
"Our partners across the globe have made significant progress in getting to this point and are fully prepared to deliver their hardware to system integration starting this November, which is the next major milestone for the project," said Tom Hoffman, InSight project manager of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California. "We now move from doing the design and analysis to building and testing the hardware and software that will get us to Mars and collect the science that we need to achieve mission success."

To investigate the planet's interior, the stationary lander will carry a robotic arm that will deploy surface and burrowing instruments contributed by France and Germany. The national space agencies of France and Germany -- Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales (CNES) and Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt (DLR) -- are partnering with NASA by providing InSight's two main science instruments.

The Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure (SEIS) will be built by CNES in partnership with DLR and the space agencies of Switzerland and the United Kingdom. It will measure waves of ground motion carried through the interior of the planet, from "marsquakes" and meteor impacts. The Heat Flow and Physical Properties Package, from DLR, will measure heat coming toward the surface from the planet's interior.

"Mars actually offers an advantage over Earth itself for understanding how habitable planetary surfaces can form," said Bruce Banerdt, InSight principal investigator from JPL. "Both planets underwent the same early processes. But Mars, being smaller, cooled faster and became less active while Earth kept churning. So Mars better preserves the evidence about the early stages of rocky planets' development."

The three-legged lander will go to a site near the Martian equator and provide information for a planned mission length of 720 days -- about two years. InSight adapts a design from the successful NASA Phoenix Mars Lander, which examined ice and soil on far-northern Mars in 2008.

"We will incorporate many features from our Phoenix spacecraft into InSight, but the differences between the missions require some differences in the InSight spacecraft," said InSight Program Manager Stu Spath of Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company, Denver. "For example, the InSight mission duration is 630 days longer than Phoenix, which means the lander will have to endure a wider range of environmental conditions on the surface."

Guided by images of the surroundings taken by the lander, InSight's robotic arm will place the seismometer on the surface and then place a protective covering over it to minimize effects of wind and temperature on the sensitive instrument. The arm will also put the heat-flow probe in position to hammer itself into the ground to a depth of 3 to 5 yards, or meters.

Another experiment will use the radio link between InSight and NASA's Deep Space Network antennas on Earth to precisely measure a wobble in Mars' rotation that could reveal whether Mars has a molten or solid core. Wind and temperature sensors from Spain's Centro de Astrobiologia and a pressure sensor will monitor weather at the landing site, and a magnetometer will measure magnetic disturbances caused by the Martian ionosphere.

InSight's international science team is made up of researchers from Austria, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, Poland, Spain, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States. JPL manages InSight for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. InSight is part of NASA's Discovery Program of competitively selected missions. NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, manages the Discovery Program. Lockheed Martin will build the lander and other parts of the spacecraft at its Littleton, Colorado, facility near Denver.
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NASA JPL | May 19, 2014

Имxотеп

Презентация о текущем состоянии миссии Insight: разработка приборов, изучение района посадки и планирование.


По итогам съемки HiRISE число возможных посадочных эллипсов сократилось до 4, окончательный выбор будет сделан в ноябре 2015 года.

che wi

Next NASA Mission to Mars Reaches Development Milestone
http://www.nasa.gov/jpl/insight/next-nasa-mission-to-mars-reaches-development-milestone/

ЦитироватьNASA's InSight mission has begun the assembly, test and launch operations (ATLO) phase of its development, on track for a March 2016 launch to Mars.

The lander, its aeroshell and cruise stage are being assembled by Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver.

"Reaching this stage that we call ATLO is a critical milestone," said InSight Project Manager Tom Hoffman at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California. "This is a very satisfying point of the mission as we transition from many teams working on their individual elements to integrating these elements into a functioning system. The subsystems are coming from all over the globe, and the ATLO team works to integrate them into the flight vehicle. We will then move rapidly to rigorous testing when the spacecraft has been assembled, and then to the launch preparations."

Over the next six months, technicians at Lockheed Martin will add subsystems such as avionics, power, telecomm, mechanisms, thermal systems and navigation systems onto the spacecraft. The propulsion system was installed earlier this year on the lander's main structure.

"The InSight mission is a mix of tried-and-true and new-and-exciting. The spacecraft has a lot of heritage from Phoenix and even back to the Viking landers, but the science has never been done before at Mars," said Stu Spath, InSight program manager at Lockheed Martin Space Systems. "Physically, InSight looks a lot like the Phoenix lander we built, but most of the electronic components are similar to what is currently flying on the MAVEN spacecraft."

InSight stands for "Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport," and it is more than a Mars mission. This NASA Discovery-class mission is a terrestrial planet explorer that will address one of the most fundamental issues of planetary and solar system science: understanding the processes that shaped the rocky planets of the inner solar system (including Earth) more than four billion years ago.

To investigate the planet's interior, the stationary lander will carry a robotic arm that will deploy surface and burrowing instruments contributed by France and Germany. The national space agencies of France and Germany -- Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales (CNES) and Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt (DLR), respectively -- are partnering with NASA by providing InSight's two main science instruments.

The Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure (SEIS) will be built by CNES in partnership with DLR and the space agencies of Switzerland and the United Kingdom. It will measure waves of ground motion carried through the interior of the planet, from "marsquakes" and meteor impacts. The Heat Flow and Physical Properties Package, from DLR, will measure heat coming toward the surface from the planet's interior.

Guided by images of the surroundings taken by the lander, InSight's robotic arm will place the seismometer on the surface and then place a protective covering over it to minimize effects of wind and temperature on the sensitive instrument. The arm will also put the heat-flow probe in position to hammer itself into the ground to a depth of 3 to 5 yards, or meters.

Another experiment will use the radio link between InSight and NASA's Deep Space Network antennas on Earth to measure precisely a wobble in Mars' rotation that could reveal whether the planet has a molten or solid core. Wind and temperature sensors from Spain's Centro de Astrobiologia and a pressure sensor will monitor weather at the landing site, and a magnetometer will measure magnetic disturbances caused by the Martian ionosphere.

The InSight mission is led by JPL's Bruce Banerdt. It is part of NASA's Discovery Program of competitively sel ected, cost-capped missions. Its international science team combines researchers fr om Austria, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, Poland, Spain, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States. JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, manages InSight for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, manages the Discovery Program. Lockheed Martin is building the lander and other parts of the spacecraft near Denver.

che wi

Остался год до запуска.
Уже определились с районом посадки.

Single Site on Mars Advanced for 2016 NASA Lander
http://www.nasa.gov/jpl/insight/single-site-on-mars-advanced-for-2016-nasa-lander/

Цитировать

This map shows the single area under continuing evaluation as the InSight mission's Mars landing site, as of a year before the mission's May 2016 launch.  The finalist ellipse marked within the northern portion of flat-lying Elysium Planitia is centered at about 4.5 degrees north latitude and 136 degrees east longitude.

Quoondо

Главное чтобы у американцев не произошло как в 1998-ом(((

Salo

http://www.spaceflightinsider.com/missions/solar-system/insights-robotic-arm-undergoes-testing-instrument-deployment/
ЦитироватьInSight's robotic arm undergoes instrument deployment testing      

Photo Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech         
             
Jason Rhian
March 6th, 2015          
                                 
If everything goes according to plan, NASA's Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport (InSight ) mission will touch down on the surface of Mars. While there, it will conduct studies into the processes that formed and shaped the terrestrial planets, including our home world. To help the stationary lander achieve this mission, it has been provided with an array of scientific instruments – two of which will need to be placed on the surface of the Red Planet with the lander's arm.
InSight's robotic arm will need to be able to hoist two science instruments from the lander's back and onto the ground. To demonstrate that it is capable of accomplishing this, engineers inside a clean room, located at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, performed tests with the lander's arm about two years before it will perform these tasks on Mars.
InSight is currently scheduled to launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base's Space Launch Complex 3E (SLC-3E) atop an Atlas V 401 booster in March 2016.
France's national space agency (CNES) provided the Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure, or SEIS, which is one of the two instruments planned for deployment. It contains parts which hail from Germany, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
In the featured image, the robotic arm is seen after it has set down a test article of SEIS (more accurately the instrument's wind and thermal shield).  This shield is to diminish the possible impact caused by Martian weather on SEIS' seismometer.
InSight is a part of NASA's Discovery Program. These missions are competitively-selected and have scientific goals meant to enable further exploration of the Solar System. InSight is managed out of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center located in Huntsville, Alabama, for the Science Mission Directorate in Washington D.C. InSight is constructed by Lockheed Martin Space Systems.
"Были когда-то и мы рысаками!!!"

che wi

NASA Begins Testing Mars Lander in Preparation for Next Mission to Red Planet
http://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-begins-testing-mars-lander-in-preparation-for-next-mission-to-red-planet

ЦитироватьTesting is underway on NASA's next mission on the journey to Mars, a stationary lander scheduled to launch in March 2016.

The lander is called InSight, an abbreviation for Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport. It is about the size of a car and will be the first mission devoted to understanding the interior structure of the Red Planet. Examining the planet's deep interior could reveal clues about how all rocky planets, including Earth, formed and evolved.

The current testing will help ensure InSight can operate in and survive deep space travel and the harsh conditions of the Martian surface. The spacecraft will lift off from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, and land on Mars about six months later.

Спойлер
The technical capabilities and knowledge gained from Insight, and other Mars missions, are crucial to NASA's journey to Mars, which includes sending astronauts to the Red Planet in the 2030s.

"Today, our robotic scientific explorers are paving the way, making great progress on the journey to Mars," said Jim Green, director of NASA's Planetary Science Division at the agency's headquarters in Washington. "Together, humans and robotics will pioneer Mars and the solar system."

During the environmental testing phase at Lockheed Martin's Space Systems facility near Denver, the lander will be exposed to extreme temperatures, vacuum conditions of nearly zero air pressure simulating interplanetary space, and a battery of other tests over the next seven months. The first will be a thermal vacuum test in the spacecraft's "cruise" configuration, which will be used during its seven-month journey to Mars. In the cruise configuration, the lander is stowed inside an aeroshell capsule and the spacecraft's cruise stage – for power, communications, course corrections and other functions on the way to Mars -- is fastened to the capsule.

"The assembly of InSight went very well and now it's time to see how it performs," said Stu Spath, InSight program manager at Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver. "The environmental testing regimen is designed to wring out any issues with the spacecraft so we can resolve them while it's here on Earth. This phase takes nearly as long as assembly, but we want to make sure we deliver a vehicle to NASA that will perform as expected in extreme environments."

Other tests include vibrations simulating launch and checking for electronic interference between different parts of the spacecraft.  The testing phase concludes with a second thermal vacuum test in which the spacecraft is exposed to the temperatures and atmospheric pressures it will experience as it operates on the Martian surface.

The mission's science team includes U.S. and international co-investigators from universities, industry and government agencies.

"It's great to see the spacecraft put together in its launch configuration," said InSight Project Manager Tom Hoffman at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Pasadena, California. "Many teams from across the globe have worked long hours to get their elements of the system delivered for these tests. There still remains much work to do before we are ready for launch, but it is fantastic to get to this critical milestone."
[свернуть]

che wi

и на русском

В NASA приступили к испытаниям нового аппарата, предназначенного для отправки на Марс
http://tass.ru/kosmos/2001350

ЦитироватьВАШИНГТОН, 28 мая. /Корр. ТАСС Анатолий Бочинин/. Национальное управление США по аэронавтике и исследованию космического пространства (NASA) приступило к испытаниям нового аппарата, получившего название "Инсайт" (InSight). Именно он должен будет отправиться на Марс в 2016 году, чтобы собрать данные для первой экспедиции на Красную планету.

Как сообщается на сайте NASA, "Инсайт" имеет габариты средней легковой машины. Установка будет изучать сейсмическую активность, теплообмен на поверхности планеты, а также займется геодезией. Таким образом, ученые рассчитывают не только изучить сам Марс, но и понять, как формировались подобные планеты, в том числе и Земля.

Запуск "Инсайта" запланирован на март 2016 года. Места назначения он достигнет примерно через полгода. Сейчас разработчики подвергают свое творение всем мыслимым и немыслимым испытаниям - проверяют его на устойчивость к экстремально высоким температурам, создают вокруг него условия, аналогичные открытому космосу, включая вакуум, проверяют работу аккумуляторов. "Сборка "Инсайта" прошла без проблем, и пришло время увидеть, как он будет работать. Тестирование в условиях окружающей среды призвано выявить недостатки, которые мы сможем устранить, пока установка еще находится на Земле", - поясняет Стью Спат, управляющий программы "Инсайт" в "Локхид-Мартин Спейс Системс" (Lockheed Martin Space Systems).

"Инсайт" можно считать международным проектом. Над ним трудились специалисты из Австрии, Бельгии, Канады, Франции, Германии, Японии, Польши, Испании, Швейцарии, Великобритании и Соединенных Штатов.


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NASA Mars Orbiter Preparing for InSight Lander's 2016 Arrival
http://insight.jpl.nasa.gov/newsdisplay.cfm?Subsite_News_ID=38256

ЦитироватьFast Facts:
- Since 2006, MRO has supported missions to the surface of Mars, in addition to conducting its own science observations
- In 2016, MRO will be listening for transmissions from NASA's next Mars lander, InSight, as it descends and touches down
- An MRO maneuver planned for this week is designed to put it at the right place over Mars for InSight's landing

With its biggest orbit maneuver since 2006, NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) will prepare this week for the arrival of NASA's next Mars lander, InSight, next year.

A planned 77-second firing of six intermediate-size thrusters on July 29 will adjust the orbit timing of the veteran spacecraft so it will be in position to receive radio transmissions from InSight as the newcomer descends through the Martian atmosphere and touches down on Sept. 28, 2016. These six rocket engines, which were used for trajectory corrections during the spacecraft's flight from Earth to Mars, can each produce about 22 newtons, or five pounds, of thrust.

Спойлер
"Without making this orbit change maneuver, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter would be unable to hear from InSight during the landing, but this will put us in the right place at the right time," said MRO Project Manager Dan Johnston of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California.

The orbiter will record InSight's transmissions for later playback to Earth as a record of each event during the critical minutes of InSight's arrival at Mars, just as MRO did for the landings of NASA's Curiosity Mars rover three years ago, and NASA's Phoenix Mars lander in 2008.

InSight will examine the deep interior of Mars for clues about the formation and early evolution of all rocky planets, including Earth.

MRO will continue its studies of Mars while preparing for the InSight arrival. MRO collects high-resolution imaging and spectral data, as well as atmospheric and sub-surface profiles. It has returned several times more data about the Red Planet than all other deep-space missions combined. It will also continue providing communication relay support for Mars rovers and making observations for analysis of candidate landing sites for future missions.

After the InSight landing, plans call for MRO to perform a pair of even larger maneuvers in October 2016 and April 2017 -- each using the six intermediate-size thrusters longer than three minutes. These will return it to the orbit timing it has used since 2006, crossing the equator at about 3 a.m. and 3 p.m., local solar time, during each near-polar loop around the planet. To observe the InSight arrival, MRO will be in an orbit that crosses the equator at about 2:30 p.m. local solar mean time.

The last time the mission performed a maneuver larger than this week's was on November 15, 2006. That maneuver fired the intermediate-size thrusters for 76 seconds to establish the original 3 p.m. Local Mean Solar Time (LMST) sun-synchronous condition after a six-month period of using dips into the upper atmosphere to alter the orbit's shape. The spacecraft has three sets of thrusters. It used its most powerful set -- six thrusters, each with 170 newtons, or 39 pounds of force -- for about 27 minutes to first enter orbit when it arrived at Mars on March 10, 2006. It uses eight smaller thrusters most frequently, for small adjustments to course or orientation.

Even after the planned 2017 maneuver, the spacecraft's remaining supply of hydrazine propellant is projected to be more than 413 pounds (about 187 kilograms), equivalent to about 19 years of consumption in normal operations.
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Salo

http://news.discovery.com/space/private-spaceflight/mars-mission-will-drill-deep-for-inside-information-150806.htm?sf11769188=1
ЦитироватьMars Mission Will Drill Deep for Inside Information
Aug 6, 2015 12:53 PM ET
by Elizabeth Howell
   
An artist's concept shows the InSight spacecraft, which will provide the best look yet at the insides of Mars.                                   
                               
Besides some Martian meteorites collected on Earth, some gravity data fr om spacecraft and other bits of information, our knowledge of the planet's insides is small, said Bruce Banerdt, the principal investigator of a new lander called InSight, at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California. But that's about to change.
InSight (Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport) will launch for Mars in March on a quick six-month journey to the Red Planet. Upon arriving at the Martian equator, the spacecraft will deploy a small drill to probe the planet's interior and a seismometer to measure any "marsquakes" that occur.
Mars 2020: Wh ere We'll Look for Alien Life: Photos
"Mars is a really good laboratory to understand how planets form into the complex bodies they are," Banerdt told Discovery News. This is because the lack of plate tectonics means the planet did not meld its early rocks into the interior (unlike Earth). Also, it's big enough to have a complex interior with a core and mantle, unlike Earth's nearby moon.
 https://youtu.be/x4JFYy_Lb5Y
For the past two months, engineers have been testing InSight's chops at a Lockheed Martin facility in Colorado. So far, things are going well, the company says. The contractor has decades of experience working with NASA and helps to operate two spacecraft that will relay information from InSight to orbit — Mars Odyssey and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter — and then to Earth. (MRO was recently repositioned in orbit to help with InSight's landing.)
Testing is divided into two phases — the launch and cruise to Mars, and then the complex entry, descent and landing. Luckily for InSight, a similar system was tested before when the Phoenix lander safely made it to the surface in August 2007. But there still are a number of steps to consider, including separating the lander from the cruise shield and safely deploying the legs InSight will rest on while sitting on the surface.
"After we touch down, the first most critical event is the deployment of the landing solar array," Stu Spath, InSight program manager at Lockheed Martin Space Systems Co., told Discovery News. "It will unfurl into a nearly circular pattern and collect the solar energy for power. Then we'll test our most critical components and do a communications check to communicate properly (to Earth)."
Curiosity's 3 Years Unraveling Mars' Mysteries
The first 80 sols (Martian days) of work will be busy. In the first 40 sols, InSight will test out its systems and place the seismometer on the surface. Then comes the drill. It will be slowly lowered below the surface a half-meter (1.6 feet) at a time. Investigators will then take a few days to send out a heat pulse to see how the environment around the drill is reacting. The mission goal is to get the drill at least 3 to 5 meters (10 to 16 feet) deep.
      
"Были когда-то и мы рысаками!!!"


Имxотеп

Небольшая презентация про кубсаты MarCO, которые будут ретранслировать данные во время посадки Insight 28 сентября 2016 года.





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NASA's InSight Mars lander on track for March 2016 launch
http://www.spaceflightinsider.com/missions/solar-system/nasas-insight-mars-lander-on-track-for-march-2016-launch/

ЦитироватьNASA's next Mars mission – the Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport (InSight) lander – is taking shape for a March 2016 planned launch. The spacecraft, dedicated to investigating the Red Planet's deep interior, is now fully assembled and on track for liftoff atop a United Launch Alliance's (ULA) Atlas V 401 booster. The mission will be launched from the Space Launch Complex 3 (SLC-3) at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

"The lander has been fully assembled and is in its testing phase. We have finished all the major environments tests and are currently working through operational testing," William "Bruce" Banerdt, InSight Principal Investigator at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), told Astrowatch.net.

This series of tests will help ensure that InSight can operate during deep space travel and that it can survive the harsh conditions on Mars.

The testing includes exposing the lander to extreme temperatures and vacuum conditions of nearly zero air pressure simulating interplanetary space. Other tests feature vibrations – simulating launch – as well as checking for electronic interference between different parts of the spacecraft.

Спойлер
The lander is equipped with two main geophysical instruments that will investigate Mars' interior structure and geological processes. The Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure (SEIS) will conduct precise measurements of quakes and other internal activity, while the Heat Flow and Physical Properties Package (HP3) will burrow up to 16 ft. (five meters) into the Martian subsurface – deeper than all previous drills and probes have gone. The spacecraft, built by Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company, is based on NASA's Phoenix mission that successfully studied ground ice near the north pole of Mars in 2008. It has a mass of 770 lbs. (349 kg) and is 18 ft. (5 meters) long when the solar panels are deployed.

By using the lander's scientific payload, the scientists hope to learn valuable information about the evolution of rocky planets, studying processes that shaped Mars. They also plan to determine the present level of tectonic activity and meteorite impact rate on the Red Planet. NASA has predicted it will acquire more than 29 GB of seismic data during the first year of science operations.

"We expect to be able to determine the basic structure of the planet: the thickness and layering of the crust, the composition and stratification of the mantle, and the size, composition and state [solid vs. liquid] of the core. We will also measure the amount of heat escaping from the interior as well as the level of seismic activity and the rate of meteorite impacts," Banerdt said.

Amidst some technical issues with the payload, the spacecraft is currently on track for launch in March of 2016.

"We are still on track for a launch next March, although we are still working on some technical issues with the payload," Banerdt revealed.

InSight should be launched sometime between March 4–30, 2016. It should touch down on the Martian surface in September of 2016. It is designed to operate for about two years.
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Mars Mission Team Addressing Vacuum Leak on Key Science Instrument
http://insight.jpl.nasa.gov/newsdisplay.cfm?Subsite_News_ID=38435

ЦитироватьA key science instrument that will be carried aboard NASA's Interior Exploration Using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport (InSight) spacecraft being prepared for launch in March 2016 is experiencing a leak in the vacuum container carrying its main sensors. The sensors are part of an instrument called the Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure (SEIS), which is provided by the French Space Agency (CNES).

The seismometer is the prime science payload that will help answer questions about the interior structure and processes within the deep Martian interior. The SEIS instrument has three high-sensitivity seismometers enclosed in a sealed sphere. The seismometers need to operate in a vacuum in order to provide exquisite sensitivity to ground motions as small as the width of an atom. After the final sealing of the sphere, a small leak was detected, that would have prevented meeting the science requirements once delivered to the surface of Mars.

The CNES/JPL team is currently working to repair the leak, prior to instrument integration and final environmental tests in France before shipping to the United States for installation into the spacecraft and launch.

The InSight lander has completed assembly and testing at Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Colorado, and is being prepared to ship to the Vandenberg AFB launch site. Installation of the seismometer is planned for early January. The Heat Flow and Physical Properties Package (HP3) from Germany and the rest of the scientific payload are already installed.

NASA and CNES managers are committed to launching in March and are currently assessing the launch window timeline. This will be the first launch on the West Coast of a Mars mission and the first project devoted to investigating the deep interior of the Red Planet.
Если не успеют с устранением, то перенос на 2018 год?

Salo

#99
Цитировать Alexandra Witze Подлинная учетная запись ‏@alexwitze
Jim Green: InSight will not launch before March 18. (Also said launch window pushes into April.) #AGU15
"Были когда-то и мы рысаками!!!"