NASA InSight mission, which originally was to be launched this month, leaving only a thick two years toward Mars.
We were at the end LOOK already busy schedule last year to make it to our sheet pay attention: the InSight lander, which would begin its journey to the red planet in March 2016 there to investigate a minimum of two years, the soil in many ways. Until it became known in December that the launch because of a defect had been postponed until further notice. Now NASA has announced the new schedule: InSight will probably leave in May 2018
Extreme precision
The reason for the delay was the SEIS instrument. need to measure the movements in the Martian soil the size of an atom. To achieve extreme precision, are the main SEIS sensors in a vacuum. But last year there was a test at -45 degrees a leak, causing the vacuum could not be maintained.
Unfortunately, it was not possible to repair the leak fast enough before the scheduled launch in March. And that meant equal lot postponement because Earth and Mars only once every 26 months, a few weeks at best relative to each other.
Overshadowed?
Next launch window , from may 5, 2018, expects to get NASA indeed, as the space agency announced this week. In the meantime, a whole new vacuum system is designed for SEIS experiment. During 2017 the system will then undergo a series of tests – and hope that did not create a leak. Could then namely defer the launch date for summer 2020, and then InSight is somewhat overshadowed by the launch of Mars in 2020, the next big rover of NASA
Sources:. NASA (1), NASA (2)
Image: NASA / JPL-Caltech
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