PIA20345: MarCO Flight Hardware 1


MarCO Flight Hardware 1

Caption:

One of the two MarCO (Mars Cube One) CubeSat spacecraft, with its insides displayed, is seen at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California.

The briefcase-size MarCO twins were designed to ride along with NASA's next Mars lander, InSight. Its planned March 2016 launch was suspended.

InSight -- an acronym for Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport -- will study the interior of Mars to improve understanding of the processes that formed and shaped rocky planets, including Earth.

Background Info:

The MarCO and InSight projects are managed for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, by JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena.

Photojournal Note : 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.

Cataloging Keywords:

Name Value Additional Values
Target Mars
System
Target Type Planet
Mission InSight
Instrument Host InSight Lander
Host Type Lander
Instrument MarCO
Detector
Extra Keywords Color
Acquisition Date
Release Date 2016-01-20
Date in Caption
Image Credit NASA/JPL-Caltech
Source photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA20345
Identifier PIA20345