{"id":783,"date":"2012-08-21T16:34:23","date_gmt":"2012-08-21T16:34:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/megalextoria.wordpress.com\/?p=783"},"modified":"2012-08-21T16:34:23","modified_gmt":"2012-08-21T16:34:23","slug":"nasa-unveils-new-mars-mission-to-probe-red-planets-core","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/2012\/08\/21\/nasa-unveils-new-mars-mission-to-probe-red-planets-core\/","title":{"rendered":"NASA Unveils New Mars Mission to Probe Red Planet’s Core"},"content":{"rendered":"
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NASA\u2019s next low-budget planetary mission will land a probe on Mars in 2016 to study why the Red Planet went down such a different evolutionary path than Earth did, the agency announced today (Aug. 20).<\/p>\n

The new mission, called InSight, will attempt to determine whether Mars\u2019 core is liquid or solid, and why the Red Planet\u2019s crust does not appear to be composed of drifting tectonic plates like Earth\u2019s is. Such information could help scientists better understand how rocky planets form and evolve, researchers said.<\/p>\n

InSight will get to the \u2018core\u2019 of the nature of the interior and structure of Mars, well below the observations we\u2019ve been able to make from orbit or the surface,\u201d John Grunsfeld, associate administrator for NASA\u2019s Science Mission Directorate, said in a statement.<\/p>\n

InSight \u2014 short for Interior exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport \u2014 is the latest of NASA\u2019s Discovery-class missions, and its cost will be capped at $425 million in 2010 dollars (excluding the launch vehicle).<\/p>\n

The mission will be led by Bruce Banerdt of NASA\u2019s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. Insight is slated to launch in March 2016 and put a lander on Mars in September of that year to begin its two-year science mission.<\/p>\n

The lander will carry four instruments, which will determine Mars\u2019 rotation axis and measure the seismic waves and heat flowing through and from the planet\u2019s interior. The craft will also sport a robotic arm and two cameras, researchers said.<\/p>\n

Insight beat out two other finalists to become NASA\u2019s 12th Discovery-class mission. The other two contenders were Comet Hopper, which would have landed on a comet multiple times to study how the body changed on its trip around the sun, and the Titan Mare Explorer, or TiME.<\/p>\n

TiME would have dropped onto the methane-ethane seas of Saturn\u2019s huge moon Titan, providing the first direct exploration of an ocean beyond Earth.<\/p>\n

All three finalists offered great scientific potential, officials said. But InSight builds on technology used in NASA\u2019s Phoenix lander mission, which confirmed the presence of subsurface water ice near the Martian north pole in 2008.<\/p>\n

That heritage \u2014 along with key contributions on science instruments from the French and German space agencies \u2014 helped swing the decision InSight\u2019s way, convincing NASA that the mission could stay within its relatively low budget.<\/p>\n

Full article: http:\/\/www.space.com \u2026 ion-2016-launch.html<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NASA\u2019s next low-budget planetary mission will land a probe on Mars in 2016 to study why the Red Planet went down such a different evolutionary path than Earth did, the agency announced today (Aug. 20). The new mission, called InSight, will attempt to determine whether Mars\u2019 core is liquid or solid, and why the Red Planet\u2019s crust does not appear to be composed of drifting tectonic plates like Earth\u2019s is. Such information could help scientists better understand how rocky planets form and evolve, researchers said. InSight will get to the \u2018core\u2019 of the nature of the interior and structure of Mars, well below the observations we\u2019ve been able to make from orbit or the surface,\u201d John Grunsfeld, associate administrator for NASA\u2019s Science Mission Directorate, said in a statement. InSight \u2014 short for Interior exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport \u2014 is the latest of NASA\u2019s Discovery-class missions, and its cost will be capped at $425 million in 2010 dollars (excluding the launch vehicle). The mission will be led by Bruce Banerdt of NASA\u2019s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. Insight is slated to launch in March 2016 and put a lander on Mars in September of that year […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[903,1091,1205],"class_list":["post-783","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-space","tag-insight","tag-mars","tag-nasa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/783","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=783"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/783\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=783"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=783"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=783"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}