NASA InSight: Engineering a Mars Lander
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L-5 Mission Briefing
Prior to landing on the Red Planet NASA discusses the engineering that went into the InSight lander. Launched on May 5, InSight marks NASA's first Mars landing since the Curiosity rover in 2012. The landing will kick off a two-year mission in which InSight will become the first spacecraft to study Mars' deep interior. Its data also will help scientists understand the formation of all rocky worlds, including our own.
InSight is being followed to Mars by two miniature NASA spacecraft, jointly called Mars Cube One (MarCO), the first deep-space mission for CubeSats. If MarCO makes its planned Mars flyby, it will attempt to relay data from InSight as it enters the planet's atmosphere and lands.
InSight and MarCO flight controllers will monitor the spacecraft's entry, descent and landing from Mission Control at JPL.
Speakers:
- Thomas Zurbuchen, Associate Administrator
- Lori Glaze, acting director of the Planetary Science Division, NASA Headquarters, Washington
- Bruce Banerdt, InSight principal investigator, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California
- Tom Hoffman, InSight project manager at JPL
- Sue Smrekar, InSight deputy principal investigator at JPL
- Tilman Spohn, Director of the Institute of Planetary Research of the German Aerospace
- Veronica McGregor, Media Relations Manager