NASA’s InSight Mission Is Taking Names To Mars
In November of 2018, the NASA InSight Lander will be landing on Mars. Now you can add your name to the historic event.
In 2015, nearly 827,000 people signed up to add their names to a silicon microchip on-board the robotic spacecraft. NASA is now adding a second microchip, giving the public another chance to send their names to Mars on the NASA InSight.
To be a part of this mission, you need to submit your name and receive your “Boarding Pass” before Nov. 1, 2017. Click here to get started.
“Mars continues to excite space enthusiasts of all ages,” said Bruce Banerdt, the InSight mission’s principal investigator at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. “This opportunity lets them become a part of the spacecraft that will study the inside of the Red Planet.”
NASA InSight is a Discovery Program mission that will place a single geophysical lander on Mars to study its deep interior.
A chip carrying the names of 1.38 million people also flew aboard the first flight of NASA’s Orion spacecraft in 2014. NASA is building Orion to carry astronauts to deep space destinations that will enable future missions to Mars.
According to NASA, the next opportunity to be a part of a NASA mission following the NASA InSight, will be NASA’s Exploration Mission-1, the first flight bringing together the Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft to travel thousands of miles beyond the Moon in preparation for human missions to Mars and beyond.
NASA InSight, which stands for Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport, will be the first mission to explore Mars’ deep interior. The spacecraft will set down a seismometer to detect marsquakes and meteor strikes, using the seismic energy of these phenomena to study material far below the Martian surface. It also will deploy a self-hammering heat probe that will burrow deeper into the ground than any previous device on the Red Planet. These and other InSight investigations will improve our understanding about the formation and evolution of all rocky planets, including Earth.
NASA InSight is scheduled to launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, in May of 2018.
To learn more about NASA InSight Lander, click here.
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