After the successful landing of NASA’s Mars lander, the Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport, or InSight in short at the Elysium Planitia on Mars on November 26 last year, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory team has been working on the next step of the Red Planet exploration.
InSight was launch on May 5, 2018 at 11:05 UTC aboard an Atlas V-401 rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base. After travelling for 483 million km from Earth, InSight had successfully landed on the Red Planet on November 26, 2018 at 19:52 UTC. Its objectives are to place a seismometer, called SEIS on the surface of Mars to measure seismic activity and provide accurate 3D models of the planet’s interior. The second objective is to measure the internal heat flow using a heat probe called HP3 to study Mars’ early geological evolution.
For the past few months, the clean room floor in High Bay 1 at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California has been covered in parts and components for the Mars 2020 spacecraft, scheduled for a lift off to the Red Planet in July 2020. But over the past few weeks, some of these components are tucked neatly into the entry capsule as preparation towards launch day. The procedure is known as vehicle stacking and involves a hyper-detailed plan for what goes where and when.
“One of our main jobs is to make sure the rover and all the hardware that is required to get the rover from here on Earth to the surface of Mars fits inside the payload fairing of an Atlas V rocket, which gives us about 5 meters of width to work with,” said David Gruel, Assembly, Test and Launch Operations (ATLO) Manager for Mars 2020 at JPL.
After three weeks, stacking is completed on April 3, and the spacecraft is transported to JPL’s Environment Test Facility to undergo an acoustic testing. This test will determine if there will be any loose bolt or attachment points have become unstuck when the stack is bombarded with a thundering wall of sound designed to imitate the sound wave generated during launch. Then, the stack heads to the thermal vacuum chamber for a week-long test that simulates the harsh environment of space to assess how the spacecraft and its instruments operate under such conditions.
The Mars 2020 rover will conduct geological assessments of its landing site on Mars, determine the habitability of the environment, search for signs of ancient Martian life and assess natural resources and hazards for future human explorers. Scientists will also use the instruments on board the Mars 2020 rover to collect samples of rock and soil, encase them in sealed tubes and leave them on the planet’s surface for potential return to Earth on a future Mars mission.
For more information about the Mars 2020 mission, go to: http://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/