NASA Suspends 2016 Launch of InSight Mission to Mars

The InSight mission to Mars was to be launched this coming March, but has been indefinitely postponed due to problems with its main instrument:

After thorough examination, NASA managers have decided to suspend the planned March 2016 launch of the Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations Geodesy and Heat Transport (InSight) mission. The decision follows unsuccessful attempts to repair a leak in a section of the prime instrument in the science payload.

The leaky instrument was supplied and built by France, and is designed to help analyze the geology of Mars:

The instrument involved is the Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure (SEIS), a seismometer provided by France’s Centre National d'Études Spatiales (CNES). Designed to measure ground movements as small as the diameter of an atom, the instrument requires a vacuum seal around its three main sensors to withstand the harsh conditions of the Martian environment.

Mars Prime launch windows for missions to Mars open up every 26 months due to the relative positions of Earth and mars. It is unclear whether or not the InSight mission will still occur during the next launch window in 2018, or if it will be cancelled completely.

The InSight probe would have used a seismometer, a drilled probe, and other instruments to study the interior structure of the planet.

Source and more information:
NASA Suspends 2016 Launch of InSight Mission to Mars, Media Teleconference Today

France you failed yet again....

Wow, that's disappointing. I heard about the leak, but I didn't consider that it might be so severe a problem that they can't even launch. Better to find out now than after it's on Mars though.

Don't blame France...I heard there was a huge, but accidental influx of plasma activity on the surface recently. It doesn't sound like a very hospitable place at the moment. I feel bad about the circumstance myself. Hopefully the stars will work things out.


/crossesfingers

originally posted by: Anansi
France you failed yet again....

So did you with this post.

Seeing as how the high and mighty United States has to hitch rides with Russians to hang out at the ISS, yeah, they're failures as well.

So tell us how France has failed other than this probe?

a reply to: trifecta

So who else was the fault, it was their task?

originally posted by: Anansi
France you failed yet again....

It's a collaborative effort, in any case France is very good at the high techy stuff, as are many countries..so what's the shout?


'SEIS was built with the participation of the Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris (IPGP) and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH), with support from the Swiss Space Office and the European Space Agency PRODEX program; the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research (MPS), supported by DLR; Imperial College, supported by the United Kingdom Space Agency; and JPL'

originally posted by: Anansi
France you failed yet again....

Sacre bleu!

a reply to: smurfy

I dont want to hear the collaborate effort, someone failed.. thats it.. The SpaceX and the falcon9 maybe can do something right.. Seems a bit easier when its privatized, everyone gets their part done.....

We've done Mars to death. No one is going there despite what everybody hopes will happen. It is a dead planet, a rock.

NASA should focus now on long-term dedicated missions to Jupiter, Uranus, and Neptune and their corresponding moons.

originally posted by: 123143
We've done Mars to death. No one is going there despite what everybody hopes will happen. It is a dead planet, a rock.

NASA should focus now on long-term dedicated missions to Jupiter, Uranus, and Neptune and their corresponding moons.

Science is not so sure about that.

It seems from the liquid flows that have been observed on Mars that there may possibly be an water source (aquifer?) somewhere beneath the surface of Mars. Astrobiologists still feel that it is possible that microbial life may exist beneath the surface.

a reply to: Soylent Green Is People

Knock yourself out. Personally, I think a lot of money is being wasted on redundant exploration.

a reply to: 123143

Everyone is Welcome to Nyx!!! Good luck finding someone

a reply to: 123143

So what do you want to do? Oh enlightened one

originally posted by: 123143
We've done Mars to death. No one is going there despite what everybody hopes will happen. It is a dead planet, a rock.

NASA should focus now on long-term dedicated missions to Jupiter, Uranus, and Neptune and their corresponding moons.

What does that even mean: "It is a dead planet, a rock."

Do you think finding aliens are the sole purpose to space exploration? Or perhaps that there is only one kind of rock, and Mars is one solid chunk of the same rock, with no further information to be gleaned, and we've already figured that out?

I hope we get to all those others ASAP, but especially with Mars' relative proximity and humanity's inexperience with studying alien worlds "in the (robot) flesh," I can't think of a single good reason to walk away from Mars at this point. Having a solid surface just doesn't seem like a great reason to abandon Mars.

originally posted by: 123143
a reply to: Soylent Green Is People
Personally, I think a lot of money is being wasted on redundant exploration.

Hardly redundant since we know almost nothing about our nearest neighbors.

Since it's a conspiracy community ....

Maybe "someone" whispered to some people at NASA that "cleanup" hasn't been quite completed yet, and this new probe might discover some explainable subsurface oddities...or foot prints...?

I sometimes don't understand this, they going to drill into the surface to take samples on one spot ?

Why don't they first fly some artificial asteroid, let it punch a hole and land something over the crater to research composition?

originally posted by: Devino

originally posted by: 123143
a reply to: Soylent Green Is People
Personally, I think a lot of money is being wasted on redundant exploration.

Hardly redundant since we know almost nothing about our nearest neighbors.

I urge you to apply some common sense in discussing this issue. We have sent a large variety of probes to Mars, but the more we learn the more we realize that, if we are thinking logically, Mars has been a dead planet for eons. It is a barren orange rock.

If there is water there there isn't much. Mars will not sustain life. A manned mission there is a foolish endeavour.

originally posted by: 123143
I urge you to apply some common sense in discussing this issue. We have sent a large variety of probes to Mars, but the more we learn the more we realize that, if we are thinking logically, Mars has been a dead planet for eons.

Thank you, I have and will continue to use common sense.
We do not know if Mars has been a dead planet for eons or how long it has been the way it is today. We don’t even know if Mars is a dead planet. Evidence shows that liquid water has been found on Mars and with that life is quite possible.
NASA Confirms Evidence That Liquid Water Flows on Today's Mars

If there is water there there isn't much. Mars will not sustain life. A manned mission there is a foolish endeavour.

Foolish like going to the Moon? Or sending all of those space probes to planets & their moons, comets, asteroids, our Moon and the Sun? What have we learned from all these missions? Do you enjoy your cell phone, the internet or your computer? Many claim this technology was inspired by our achievements to land a man on the Moon and common sense seems to agree.

It is a barren orange rock.

Sure, that is one interpretation. I have a quite another which is a little more complicated.
I think evidence is showing Mars once had an ocean, possibly a much thicker atmosphere and magnetic field which would have protected these things. It is even very possible Mars had complicated life forms yet something happen between then and now. Something very traumatic, a global catastrophe which left Mars as it looks today. A manned mission to Mars would help answer many questions and might help determine what possible threat, if any, this could be for Earth in the future.