NASA Suspends 2016 Mars Launcher Mission

Originally, NASA was aiming to launch the InSight mission in March of next year. It’s too early to determine the potential cost of repairing the leak.

“We’re close enough to launch but unfortunately we don’t have enough time to try to identify the leak, fix it and recover and still make it to the launch pad in March”, said John Grunsfeld, NASA’s science mission chief.

The lander, based on the Mars Phoenix craft that touched down on the red planet in 2008, beat out a comet-hopping probe and a vessel created to sail the hydrocarbon seas of Saturn’s moon Titan to win NASA funding. A decision on a path forward will be made in the coming months, but one thing is clear: “NASA remains fully committed to the scientific discovery and exploration of Mars”.

NASA’s next mission to Mars has been delayed until at least 2018 by a broken vacuum seal on the spacecraft, and the problem could threaten the whole mission.

The InSight spacecraft was planned to be launched to study the evolution of rocky planets, including Earth.

Nasa said it had chose to call off the launch because the agency was unable to fix a leak affecting the seismometer, which required a vacuum seal to cope with harsh conditions on Mars. With the 2016 launch cancelled, the spacecraft will be returned from Vandenberg to Lockheed’s facility in Denver.

After landing on Mars, a perception was made to identify measure just how much warmth has been launched in the subsurface along with other seismic actions, in addition to quakes and check Mars’ shake – or versions in its orbit – because it groups sunlight. However, it was launched later with high success.

NASA’s planetary missions have been on a roll of late, led by the mini-armada of Curiosity, Opportunity, Mars Odyssey, and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter – all of which continue their scrutiny of the Red Planet.

NASA and CNES also are participating in the European Space Agency’s (ESA’s) Mars Express mission now operating at Mars and plans to participate on ESA’s 2016 and 2018 ExoMars missions, including providing telecommunication radios for ESA’s 2016 orbiter and a critical element of a key astrobiology instrument on the 2018 ExoMars rover. “Everyone has been waiting to get a seismic instrument on Mars after Viking”. The German Space Agency’s Heat Flow and Physical Properties Package (HP), whose heat probe – nicknamed “the mole” – is created to burrow to a depth of up to 5 meters (16 feet) to measure the heat radiating from the planet’s core.

Budgetary limits may factor into a pending decision on whether NASA will proceed with the program.