NASA is about to attempt something they’ve
never done before.
"This is the first time we've had an interplanetary
launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.
The cool thing about this launch is that we've
got such a capable rocket, the Atlas V, we
don't have to launch from Florida."
"InSight is going to be the first time we've
had a spacecraft leave Earth's orbit launching
from California.
We've actually done studies for it, even up
to decades ago, but it just comes down to
whether or not the mission had extra propellant
left over, and whether there was an operational
reason to switch from an East Coast launch
to a West Coast.
This is just the first time all of it came
together."
"What we're going to do is we're going to
unload the spacecraft really, really carefully
and then we're going to drive it a couple
of miles to the Astrotech facility, where
they have a clean room all set up for us.
Got about two months here.
All we got to do is clean it up, test it out,
put the fuel in the tanks, and bolt it on
the rocket, and off we go to Mars."
"It's unlike other missions that we've done
on Mars.
We have a number of orbiters, a number of
landers that we've successfully explored this
amazing planet.
But this actually is the first mission where
we're looking on the inside, the inner space
of Mars."
Sending a science mission to Mars is not easy.
Landing a probe on the surface is even harder.
InSight’s compact and incredibly efficient
design makes sure it gets there and touches
down safely.
"So the crew stage itself is the critical
component that actually gets us to Mars.
There's an aeroshell that absorbs the heat
as we re-enter the atmosphere.
That aeroshell enables us to go through the
atmosphere of Mars successfully without getting
the inside of the lander itself too hot.
We deploy a parachute, that parachute does
two things.
It really ensures the stability of the aeroshell
as it's starting to get closer to the surface.
It also slows down the spacecraft further
until finally we drop out of the combination
back shell and parachute and then we do a
propulsive decent down to the surface."
"Planetary protection is what we do to responsibly
explore other planets and moons in our solar system.
In order to do that, we need to make sure
we send a clean spacecraft there.
We would hate to get to another planet or
moon and think we discovered life, but it
was actually something that we brought with
us.
So we collect our samples on InSight, any
part of InSight that's going to land on the
surface of Mars, we bring it back to our lab
and we process it using a NASA procedure.
If we run into a situation where we take a
sample and it comes back as having higher
number of bacteria then what we want, then
we make sure that engineers go back in and
clean those surfaces with the whole idea that
eventually with missions that have life detection
capabilities, we don't want to cloud our ability
to potentially find life on another planet
or moons."
The work being done now here at Astrotech
is critical to insure Insight’s safe arrival
and landing on the red planet.
It has to be perfect before it leaves Earth
on the six-month journey to Mars.
As soon as the spacecraft is fueled and tested,
InSight will be encapsulated and sent to the
launch pad to be mated with the Atlas V patiently
awaiting T-Zero.
