NASA’s next Mars spacecraft has arrived at Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, for final preparations before a launch scheduled in March 2016 and a landing on Mars six months later. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, built and tested the spacecraft and delivered it on Dec. 16 from Buckley Air Force Base in Denver to Vandenberg, on the central California Coast.
Preparations are on a tight schedule for launch during the period March 4 through March 30. The work ahead includes installation and testing of one of the mission’s key science instruments, its seismometer, which is scheduled for delivery to Vandenberg in January.
“InSight has traveled the first leg of its journey, getting from Colorado to California, and we’re on track to start the next leg, to Mars, with a launch in March,” said InSight Principal Investigator Bruce Banerdt, of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California. [More at launch]