InSight Cruise Stage and Lander in Assembly

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Caption:

Spacecraft specialists in a clean room at Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, are working on NASA's InSight spacecraft in this January 2015 scene from the mission's assembly and testing phase.

At center is the cruise stage, which will serve multiple functions during the flight from Earth to Mars. In the background is the InSight lander.

Background Info:

InSight, for Interior Exploration Using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport, will investigate the deep interior of Mars to gain information about how rocky planets, including Earth, formed and evolved. The mission is scheduled for launch from California in March 2016 and landing on Mars in September 2016.

The InSight Project is managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, for the NASA Science Mission Directorate, Washington. InSight is part of NASA's Discovery Program, which is managed by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.

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.

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