InSight – Page 4 – Behind The Black

NASA picks landing site for next Mars lander

March 5, 2015 8:51 am Robert Zimmerman

NASA scientists have chosen a specific region of Mars, Elysium Planitia, to land its next Mars science probe.

The landing-site selection process evaluated four candidate locations selected in 2014. The quartet is within the flat-lying “Elysium Planitia,” less than five degrees north of the equator, and all four appear safe for InSight’s landing. The single site will continue to be analyzed in coming months for final selection later this year. If unexpected problems with this site are found, one of the others would be imaged and could be selected. The favored site is centered at about four degrees north latitude and 136 degrees east longitude.

InSight launches next year.

Construction has now begun on NASA’s next Mars lander.

May 20, 2014 9:31 am Robert Zimmerman

Construction has now begun on NASA’s next Mars lander, set for launch in 2016.

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NASA has announced its next planetary mission, a lander to Mars that will drill down thirty feet into the planet’s surface

August 20, 2012 3:36 pm Robert Zimmerman

NASA has announced its next planetary mission, a lander to Mars that will drill down thirty feet into the planet’s surface.

Though exciting in its own right, this mission is far less ambitious than the two missions which competed against it, a boat that would have floated on the lakes of Titan and a probe that would have bounced repeatedly off the surface of a comet. I suspect the reason this mission was chosen is the tight budgets at NASA, combined with Curiosity’s success which makes it politically advantageous to approve another Mars mission. As the NASA press release emphasized,
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