Insight

Mission Preparation

The InSight project was one of three finalists (others - Titan Mare Explorer (studying Saturn's Titan satellite by a descent vehicle at sea) and Comet Hopper (studying the evolution of comets)) that received funding of $ 3 million in May 2011 for a detailed study of the concept.

On August 21, 2012, NASA announced that the InSight project was chosen as the winner. The decision to allocate funding for the InSight mission was made in August 2012. The choice in favor of Insight was due to the relatively low financial costs of this mission, as well as the ability to organize it as soon as possible ^[6] .

Initially, 22 possible places for the probe’s landing were considered, the number of which by September 2013 was reduced to the four safest from the point of view of landing: this is basically a flat area with few stones and a slight slope. All seats are located in the northern hemisphere of Mars on the plain of Elysius . Each landing area is an ellipse 130 kilometers long from east to west and 27 kilometers from north to south. The landing site will be determined using the high resolution cameras of the MRO probe.

On December 19, 2013, NASA announced the launch vehicle chosen for launching the InSight device - it became the Atlas V configuration 401. The launch will cost $ 160 million ^[7] .

On November 17, 2014, Lockheed Martin announced the start of the final assembly of the landing module ^[8] .

On December 22, 2015, at a special NASA briefing, it was announced that the launch of the mission, scheduled for March 2016, would not take place. The reason for this was the identified malfunction of the key instrument of the lander — the SEIS seismometer. During tests conducted on December 21, under conditions similar to those on Mars (-45 ° C), leakage was detected in the vacuum chamber of the seismic sensors. The manufacturer of the seismometer, the Toulouse Space Center , said it would not have time to fix the problems and complete testing of the instrument to launch the mission in March. The window for launching the mission to Mars in 2016 was rather short (from March 4 to March 30), and the next window will appear only after 26 months, in 2018 ^{[9] [10] [11]} .

In March 2016, it was confirmed that the device would still be launched in 2018. The start window for launching will open on May 5, arrival to Mars is expected on November 26, 2018 ^[12] .

Launch and Flight

InSight was launched on May 5, 2018 from the Vandenberg base at 04:05 Pacific Time (14:05 Moscow time) using the Atlas V 401 booster rocket . First, the station was launched into a polar orbit around the Earth, and then, after turning on the engines, it entered the flight path to Mars. Together with the main apparatus to Mars, two cubesats MarCO-A and MarCO-B were launched ^[13] .

On May 22, 2018, InSight made the first of six planned course corrections, turning on 4 of 8 of its engines for 40 seconds ^{[14] [15]} .

By August 6, 2018, when InSight had crossed half the way to Mars, all the probe's onboard instruments were successfully tested, including the SEIS instrument (Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure), a tool for measuring heat fluxes emanating from the bowels of the planet Heat Flow and Physical Properties Package (HP3), a Rotation and Interior Structure Experiment (RISE) tool that uses the radio communication of the spacecraft with the Earth to estimate the magnitude of the perturbations of the axis of rotation of Mars ^[16] .

Surface Work

On November 26, 2018 at 22:53 Moscow time, InSight successfully landed on the surface of Mars on the plain of Elysius and transmitted the first image ^[17] .

On December 7, 2018, the InSight space probe, which landed on Mars, transmitted an audio recording of the sound of the wind to Earth. This was announced on Twitter by the head of NASA Jim Brydenstein ^{[18] [19]} .

On December 19, 2018, with the help of a robotic arm, InSight installed a SEIS seismometer on the surface of Mars at a distance of 1.6 meters from the landing platform ^{[20] [21] [22]} .

February 13, 2019 announced the successful installation on the surface of Mars of the second remote measuring device - a heat flux sensor ^[23] .

On February 28, 2019, the HP3 tool drill began to run, but came across an obstacle. On March 2, the drill resumed work for four hours, but it did not advance further, so they decided to suspend drilling for two weeks ^[24] .

On March 2, 2019, the spacecraft of the European Space Agency Trace Gas Orbiter , using the on-board telescope CaSSIS, took a picture showing the InSight descent vehicle, the parachute and two halves of the capsule that protected InSight during its entry into the Martian atmosphere - its heat shield and rear panel ^[25] .

In April 2019, NASA reported that the French SEIS seismometer recorded the alleged first earthquake ^{[26] [27] [28]} . Earlier, a probable marrow shake of magnitude 2.8 on the Richter scale was recorded by the Viking-2 seismometer on November 6, 1976 ^{[29] [30] [31]} .

For two years, InSight will study the internal structure of Mars, recording tremors. They can arise for various reasons, in particular, as a result of the fall of meteorites that do not burn in a more rarefied Martian atmosphere. The first attempts at such studies were carried out using seismographs on the Viking-1 and Viking-2 descent vehicles launched to Mars in 1975. However, on the “Viking-1” this device did not work after landing, and on the “Viking-2” it did not have sufficient sensitivity, since it was installed not on Martian soil, but on the descent vehicle. InSight is equipped with much more advanced equipment, which, as expected, will record both meteorite falls and deep processes. In addition, the automatic station, which will remain at one point throughout the entire research cycle, has equipment for measuring the temperature of subsoil layers, as well as a six-meter drill. Radio signaling devices have been installed on the surface of the station, which will make it possible to accurately measure the parameters of the motion of Mars in orbit ^[32] . Planned duration of the mission: 728 days (709 solos ). The expected amount of scientific information to be transmitted to Earth is 29 GB . The planned completion of the mission is November 2020 ^[5] .

The scientific objectives of the InSight program are:

• The study of the geological evolution of the planets of the terrestrial group of the solar system , such as Mars and the Earth , by studying the internal structure and processes occurring in the thickness of Martian soil ^{[1] [4] [33]} :
  • Determining the size , composition and state of aggregation of the planet's core ;
  • Determination of the thickness and structure of the cortex ;
  • Determination of the composition and structure of the mantle ;
  • Determination of the temperature of the interior of Mars;
• The study of the current level of tectonic activity and frequency of meteorite incidence ^{[1] [33]} :
  • The study of the strength, frequency and geographical distribution of tectonic activity;
  • Investigation of the frequency of meteorites .

When creating the InSight landing module, many of the engineering solutions used to create the Phoenix probe, which landed in 2007 near the north pole of Mars, were used.

Power supply - solar panels.

Manipulator.

The ability to move is not provided.

Penetrator immersion depth - 6 m.

Scientific Tools

The InSight landing gear is equipped with three tools and two cameras:

• Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure (from the English - “seismic experiment of the internal structure”, SEIS ) is a seismometer for the precision measurement of the tectonic activity of Mars ^[34] . Provided by the French National Center for Space Research with the participation of the Paris Institute of Geophysics , the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology , the of the Max Planck Society , Imperial College London and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory ^[1] . The cost of the instrument is $ 42 million.
• Heat Flow and Physical Properties Package (from the English - “a set of studies of heat flow and physical properties”, HP ³ ) is a probe designed to measure heat flow under the surface of Mars. It is planned that the tool will drill a 5-meter well, which surpasses all previous tools for collecting samples - scrapers, drills, manipulators. This will allow us to determine how much heat comes from the inner layers of Mars ^[34] . The tool was provided by the German Center for Aviation and Cosmonautics ^[1] .
• Rotation and Interior Structure Experiment (from the English - “experiment of rotation and internal structure”, RISE ) - an experiment on the precision measurement of Mars oscillations under the influence of the Sun. It is planned to determine the internal structure of Mars by measuring the Doppler shift and changes in the duration of a series of radio transmissions between the InSight probe and the Earth. The experiment was prepared by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory .
• The first camera, similar to the NavCam installed on the Rovers Spirit , Opportunity and the Mars Science Laboratory , is mounted on the arm of the descent vehicle and will serve for black-and-white shooting of instruments on board and creating three-dimensional images of the surface on which the SEIS seismometer will be mounted and HP ³ heat flux probe. In addition, the camera will be used to obtain a panorama of the surrounding surface. The field of view of the camera is 45 °.
• The second camera with similar characteristics and a 120 ° field of view is similar to the cameras of the HazCam rovers and is mounted on the bottom surface of the landing module, providing an additional view of the working places of the SEIS and HP ³ tools.

There was a form on the NASA website, all of which filled in will immortalize their name in the history of the exploration of Mars. All names were recorded on a special microchip , which went to the Red Planet in 2018 as part of the InSight space mission ^[35] .

• Viking 1
• Viking 2
• Phoenix

• NASA website
• Mission news