AP
This image provided by NASA shows an artist rendition of the proposed
InSight (Interior exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and
Heat Transport) Lander.
Encouraged by the success of “Curiosity”, NASA has
announced to launch a new Mars mission in 2016 to take a better look
into the guts of the Red Planet.
The mission called “InSight” will investigate why Mars’ crust is not divided into tectonic plates that drift like Earth’s.
Detailed
knowledge of the interior of Mars in comparison to Earth will help
scientists understand better how terrestrial planets form and evolve,
the American space agency said.
“The exploration of
Mars is a top priority for NASA, and the selection of ‘InSight’ ensures
we will continue to unlock the mysteries of the Red Planet and lay the
groundwork for a future human mission there,” said NASA administrator
Charles Bolden.
“The recent successful landing of the
Curiosity rover has galvanised public interest in space exploration and
today’s announcement makes clear there are more exciting Mars missions
to come,” he said referring to the success of Curiosity.
The
12th selection in NASA’s series of Discovery-class missions, ‘InSight’
is build on spacecraft technology used in the space agency’s highly
successful Phoenix lander mission, which was launched to the Red Planet
in 2007 and determined water existed near the surface in the Martian
polar regions.
“Our Discovery Programme enables
scientists to use innovative approaches to answering fundamental
questions about our solar system in the lowest cost mission category,”
said John Grunsfeld, associate administrator for the Science Mission
Directorate at NASA Headquarters.
“’InSight’ will get
to the ‘core’ of the nature of the interior and structure of Mars, well
below the observations we’ve been able to make from orbit or the
surface,” Grunsfeld said.
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