NASA spacecraft ready for trip to Mars to dig down deep
By Marcia Dunn - Associated Press
Posted: May 5, 2018 - 5:01am
This illustration made available by NASA in 2018 shows the InSight lander drilling into Mars. InSight, short for Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport, is scheduled to launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base on Saturday, May 5, 2018, and land on Mars six months later. (NASA via AP)

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — A NASA spacecraft is poised to blast off for Mars.

The Mars InSight lander is set to launch early Saturday from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. It's the first interplanetary mission to ever take off from the West Coast. It will take more than six months for the lander to reach Mars and start its unprecedented geologic excavations

Instruments on the lander will dig deeper into Mars than ever before — nearly 16 feet, or 5 meters — to take the planet's temperature. It will also attempt to make the first measurements of marsquakes, using a seismometer placed directly on the Martian surface.

The Atlas V (five) rocket also holds a pair of mini satellites meant to trail the spacecraft all the way to Mars.
 

 

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