First NASA lander to study Mars' interior set for launch
A powerful Atlas 5 rocket is poised for liftoff from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California,
This is carrying to Mars the first robotic NASA lander designed entirely for exploring the deep interior of the red planet.
The Mars InSight probe was due to blast off from the central California coast at 4:05 a.m. PDT (1105 GMT), creating a luminous predawn spectacle of the first U.S. interplanetary spacecraft to be launched over the Pacific.
The lander will be carried aloft for NASA and its Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) atop a two-stage, 19-story Atlas 5 rocket from the fleet of United Launch Alliance, a partnership of Lockheed Martin Corp and Boeing Co.
The payload will be released about 90 minutes after launch on a 301 million-mile (484 million km) flight to Mars. It is due to reach its destination in six months, landing on a broad, smooth plain close to the planet’s equator called the Elysium Planitia.
That will put InSight roughly 373 miles from the 2012 landing site of the car-sized Mars rover Curiosity.
Published: by Radio NewsHub