Our top story, Star Wars is not the only space adventure being celebrated on this May the 4th. There is a real life adventure tomorrow -- to Mars. If you watch the skies you might just be able to see a bit of space history being made. The Mars InSight mission will be the first spacecraft to launch from the West Coast into space taking off from Vandenberg airbase. The mission is to find out what goes on inside the red planet. Joining me by Skype is Emily Manor Chapman, a systems engineer at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. >> Thank you for having me. >> When this gets to the surface of Mars, what would be testing? >> So insight is focused on understanding what is inside Mars. We are the first mission to go to Mars and focus on that. We know that Mars is the same type of planet as earth. It has the same layers, a core, mantle and across. We want to find out what each of those layers are made out. And so by understanding the interior, we can understand how it formed and understand how other rocky planets like Earth formed. >> It took a long time to get this project up and running, why is that? >> It always takes us a while to due to the design, the build, and test. We are very methodical and we only get one chance. Once the craft is in space, it has to work. We can't send a repairman to fix it. So we take our time and make sure that our components are working the way we are expecting before we send it to Mars. >> Is the inside more complex than other Mars landers? >> We are sending new instrumentation that we have never sent before. One is a seismometer. We use those to measure earthquakes and we use those on Mars to measure marsquakes. With this we can look at how seismic waves move through Mars, and that tells us something about the types of materials Mars is made up. >> How that seismometer be installed? >> So when we land on Mars, both the seismometer and another instrument that measures heat flow, they are sitting on top of the deck of the lander. We have a robotic arm that will pick those up and set them onto the surface of Mars. Once they are there, they will start collecting data. >> What was your role in the process of getting this project up and running? >> I am a member of the payload systems engineering team. So we work with all the instruments making sure they're going to be successful and achieve what we want them to achieve. So specifically I've been working with the auxiliary payload sensor with -- which is a weather instrument. I've got to look at all the test data and make sure that it was working correctly. >> Can you describe what insight looks like? >> It is the lander, so it is stationary on the surface of Mars. It will stay in one spot. In the center is the body of the lander, and then you will see the legs in the center and the top is what we call the deck, and on top of that are many pieces. And then to each side of the central part are two around kind of wing looking pieces and those are the solar arrays which supply power. >> I understand that spaceships have lunch from Florida because they use -- how is this rocket able to launch from Vandenberg's? >> The Atlas five is a very capable rocket and insight is on the smaller side for a spacecraft. It is a bit over 1500 pounds, so we can take the size of this and the capability of the Atlas five, we had enough energy from the rocket to leap from Vandenberg. >> It is expected to launch at about 4 AM tomorrow morning. We be able to see it in San Diego? >> If the weather is clear, we are expecting that people from Santa Maria North down to San Diego might be able to see the rocket. >> What will it look like if you are looking up at the night sky? >> From San Diego you will see a bright light moving through the sky. So you will see something streaking brighter than any star that you will be able to see. It should be pretty obvious that that is a rocket. >> Is expected to land on Mars by November 26. Some of those landings have been unsuccessful and they have all been nailbiter's. Is anything that will help to monitor this landing? >> Every successful landing has helped future missions. So whenever we are successful we can look at how is that missing -- mission successful. Also the landing system that we are using is similar to the landing system that was used on the Phoenix Lander about 10 years ago and that was a successful landing as well. >> I've been speaking with the engineer with the insight project. Good luck tonight and thank you for speaking with us.
Six years after last landing on Mars, NASA is sending a robotic geologist to dig deeper than ever before to take the planet's temperature.
The Mars InSight spacecraft, set to launch this weekend, will also take the planet's pulse by making the first measurements of "marsquakes." And to check its reflexes, scientists will track the wobbly rotation of Mars on its axis to better understand the size and makeup of its core.
The lander's instruments will allow scientists "to stare down deep into the planet," said the mission's chief scientist, Bruce Banerdt of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
"Beauty's not just skin deep here," he said.
The $1 billion U.S.-European mission is the first dedicated to studying the innards of Mars. By probing Mars' insides, scientists hope to better understand how the red planet — any rocky planet, including our own — formed 4.5 billion years ago.
Mars is smaller and geologically less active than its neighbor Earth, where plate tectonics and other processes have obscured our planet's original makeup. As a result, Mars has retained the "fingerprints" of early evolution, said Banerdt.
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In another first for the mission, a pair of briefcase-size satellites will launch aboard InSight, break free after liftoff, then follow the spacecraft for six months all the way to Mars. They won't stop at Mars, just fly past. The point is to test the two CubeSats as a potential communication link with InSight as it descends to the red planet on Nov. 26.
These Mars-bound cubes are nicknamed WALL-E and EVE after the animated movie characters. That's because they're equipped with the same type of propulsion used in fire extinguishers to expel foam. In the 2008 movie, WALL-E used a fire extinguisher to propel through space.
InSight is scheduled to rocket away from central California's Vandenberg Air Force Base early Saturday. It will be NASA's first interplanetary mission launched from somewhere other than Florida's Cape Canaveral. Californians along the coast down to Baja will have front-row seats for the pre-dawn flight. (7:05 a.m. EDT/4:05 a.m. PDT)
No matter the launching point, getting to Mars is hard.
The success rate, counting orbiters and landers by NASA and others, is only about 40 percent. The U.S. is the only country to have successfully landed and operated spacecraft on Mars. The 1976 Vikings were the first landing successes. The most recent was the 2012 Curiosity rover.
InSight will use the same type of straightforward parachute deployment and engine firings during descent as Phoenix lander did in 2008. No bouncy air bags like the Spirit and Opportunity rovers in 2004. No sky crane drop like Curiosity.
Landing on Mars with a spacecraft that's not much bigger than a couple of office desks is "a hugely difficult task, and every time we do it, we're on pins and needles," Banerdt said.
It will take seven minutes for the spacecraft's entry, descent and landing.
"Hopefully, we won't get any surprises on our landing day. But you never know," said NASA project manager Tom Hoffman.
Once on the surface, InSight will take interplanetary excavation to a "whole new level," according to NASA's science mission director Thomas Zurbuchen.
A slender cylindrical probe dubbed the mole is designed to tunnel nearly 16 feet (5 meters) into the Martian soil. A quake-measuring seismometer, meanwhile, will be removed from the lander by a mechanical arm and placed directly on the surface for better vibration monitoring. InSight is actually two years late flying because of problems with the French-supplied seismometer system that had to be fixed.
The 1,530-pound (694-kilogram) InSight builds on the design of the Phoenix lander and, before that, the Viking landers. They're all stationary three-legged landers; no roaming around. InSight stands for "Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport."
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InSight's science objectives, however, are reminiscent of NASA's Apollo program.
Back in the late 1960s and early 1970s, the Apollo moonwalkers drilled up to 8 feet (2.5 meters) into the lunar surface so scientists back home could measure the underground flow of lunar heat. The moon still holds seismometers left behind by the 12 moonmen.
Previous Mars missions have focused on surface or close-to-the-surface rocks and mineral. Phoenix, for instance, dug just several inches down for samples. The Martian atmosphere and magnetic field also have been examined in detail over the decades.
"But we have never probed sort of beneath the outermost skin of the planet," said Banerdt.
The landing site, Elysium Planitia, is a flat equatorial region with few big rocks that could damage the spacecraft on touchdown or block the mechanical mole's drilling. Banerdt jokingly calls it "the biggest parking lot on Mars."
Scientists are shooting for two years of work — that's two years by Earth standards, or the equivalent of one full Martian year.
"Mars is still a pretty mysterious planet," Banerdt said. "Even with all the studying that we've done, it could throw us a curveball."
