NASA’s InSight Mars mission is preparing for a March 2016 launch

NASA’s InSight program has kicked off in preparation for the upcoming March 2016 mission to Mars; assembly, testing, and launch operations are underway with the aeroshell and cruise stage of the lander currently being assembled by Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Denver. The propulsion system has already been installed earlier this year.

“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.”

Subsystems like avionics, power, telecomm, mechanism, thermal systems, and navigation systems will be added on to the spacecraft within the next six months, claims Lockheed. The InSight mission combines new science with proven technology borrowed from the Phoenix spacecraft, which landed on Mars in 2008, and the Viking probes, which orbited and then landed on Mars in 1976. In fact, the InSight craft bears a close resemblance to Phoenix. InSight’s mission to Mars is distinguished from that of Curiosity and Opportunity in that it will address the most fundamental issues of planetary and solar system science: understanding the process that shaped the planets of inner solar system.

Source: NASA