NASA is considering four probable landing sites for its three-legged probe, the new Insight Mars Lander which is bound to explore the Red Planet in 2016.
The said spacecraft is scheduled to be launched in March 2016 and will land on Mars six months after its take-off.
Matt Golomber, a geologist who works with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory told Space, “We picked four sites that look safest. They have mostly smooth terrain, few rocks and very little slope."
The new Insight Mars Lander mission, which costs $425 million, is set to determine if the core of Mars is solid or liquid, and the reason why Mars’ crust appears to lack tectonic plates.
Based on a map issued by NASA, the four probable landing sites for Insight – short for Interior Exploration Using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport – appears to be in an area of the equatorial region of Mars called Elysium Planitia, mostly in a zone northwest of Gusev Crater and the north of Gale Crater.
The powerful Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter of NASA will now be utilized to orbit around Mars to study the probable landing sites more and sooner or later make a final decision.
Crafted with a heat-flow probe, InSight will land and dig itself on the surface of the Martian planet from 2.7 to 4.5 meters deep. However, the three-legged probe can only dig itself into the broken-up surface material and dirt, but not in hard surfaces. InSight is also equipped with a seismometer and radio to carry out experiments. Scientists hope to better understand the rocky planets formation through this mission.
InSight needs to get enough sunlight for its solar arrays all throughout the mission so it needs a landing site close to the Mars equator. The landing site must also be covered with a thick atmosphere to support its deceleration during landing.
