Stubborn leaks force NASA to delay Mars mission to 2018

NASA has called off the scheduled March launch of the Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations Geodesy and Heat Transport (InSight) mission due to a leak in a major scientific instrument of the spacecraft.

Nasa was supposed to ship to the Southern California launch site next month, but said attempts to fix the leak have failed.

Artist’s concept of the InSight lander deployed on Mars.

The space agency will not be launching the Insight spacecraft in March because of an air leak in a seismometer, which measures ground movements and requires a vacuum seal to withstand the red planet’s harsh conditions.

Director of the Planetary Science Division in Washington Jim Green noted in the press release in 2008 NASA made the decision to push back the launch of the Mars Science Laboratory Mission for more prep time.

It will take weeks, if not months, before NASA knows how much this delay will cost, and whether it will be able to come up with the funding to move forward with InSight. Grunsfeld said it would take about two months to review the ramifications of the delay and the options of what to do next.

NASA’s next mission to Mars will be delayed at least two more years, if not indefinitely.

InSight is created to investigate the processes that formed and shaped Mars.

A USA technology satellite planned to start in March to Mars continues to be seated as a result of trickle in a vital study device, NASA stated on Thursday, making doubt concerning the widely-anticipated work review the inside of the planet’s potential.

Scientists have high hopes for the probe, expecting it to tell them how Mars is cooling, whether the core of Mars is solid or liquid like Earth’s, and why Mars’ crust is not divided into tectonic plates that drift like they do on Earth.

The $425 million mission was the most recent selection in NASA’s Discovery program, which was meant to be low-priced yet competitive.

“We do not believe that this is a fundamentally hard problem, given enough time to systematically investigate and resolve it”, he said. The instrument, which was provided by France’s CNES space agency, has a leak in the vacuum container that houses its primary sensors.

Certainly, things look optimistic for the technological side of InSight’s trip to Mars in 2018.

NASA is now also working on three Mars missions with the European Space Agency and plans to send another rover to the planet in 2020.