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SCIENCEThursday 10 March 2016

NASA salvages Mars mission that should have launched by now

MARCIA DUNN

AP Aerospace Writer

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla.

(AP) — NASA’s next Mars

mission is still alive.

Instead of scrapping the

grounded Mars InSight

spacecraft, the space

agency announced

Wednesday it’s shooting

for a 2018 launch.

The robotic lander was

supposed to lift off this

month,

but ended up sidelined in

December by a leak in a

key French instrument. Proj-

ect managers said the de-

vice should be redesigned

in time.

May 2018 represents the

next available launch

window. Opportunities to

launch to Mars arise just

every two years, based on

the alignment of Earth and

its neighbor.

The InSight spacecraft aims

to study the interior of Mars

by drilling deep within. The

sensors for the French seis-

mometer need to operate

in a vacuum chamber in

order to measure subtle This August 2015 artist’s rendering provided by NASA/JPL-Caltech depicts the InSight Mars lander studying the interior of Mars. On
Wednesday, March 9, 2016, NASA said it’s shooting for a 2018 launch of the InSight spacecraft.
ground movements.
Associated Press
The vacuum chamber was

leaking. The other main

science instrument, a Ger- sound. The Jet Propulsion decades,” Grunsfeld said sending humans to the red sance Orbiter and Maven
Laboratory in Pasadena, in a statement. “We’re ex- planet in the 2030s. orbiter from high above.
man heat-flow probe, was California, will take over the cited to be back on the Another NASA Mars land- Europe has its Express
redesign, building and test- path for a launch, now in er — this one a car-sized, spacecraft in orbit around
ready to fly. ing of the vacuum cham- 2018.” wheeled rover — is sched- the red planet.
ber, while the French space Mars is NASA’s prime focus uled for a 2020 launch. Europe is launching an-
It’s unknown how much agency focuses on the sci- these days. Just last week, The red planet already is other Mars mission Monday
ence instrument itself. astronaut Scott Kelly com- teeming with active space- from Kazakhstan — an or-
the two-year delay will “The quest to understand pleted a 340-day mission craft, including NASA’s biter for measuring atmo-
the interior of Mars has at the International Space Opportunity and Curiosity spheric gases and a lander
cost. NASA’s only other op- been a long-standing goal Station that’s considered a rovers on the surface, and collectively known as Exo-
of planetary scientists for scientific steppingstone for Odyssey, Mars Reconnais- Mars 2016.q
tion was to kill the project.

John Grunsfeld, head of

NASA’s science mission di-

rectorate, said the scien-

tific goals are compelling

and the repair plans are