NASA has launched another mission to Mars and this one will give scientists its deepest look yet into the planet's interior. The InSight lander, a 790-pound probe took off early Saturday morning, beginning its six-month mission to the Red Planet.
"The United States continues to lead the way to Mars with this next exciting mission to study the Red Planet’s core and geological processes," said NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine. "I want to congratulate all the teams from NASA and our international partners who made this accomplishment possible. As we continue to gain momentum in our work to send astronauts back to the Moon and on to Mars, missions like InSight are going to prove invaluable."
The new lander has several abilities that will give scientists its clearest picture of Mars' interior yet. The lander is designed to dig nearly sixteen feet into the planet's interior allowing scientists to "take the planet's temperature." The probe will also take measurements of "marsquakes" with the help of a seismometer placed on the Martian surface.
"Scientists have been dreaming about doing seismology on Mars for years. In my case, I had that dream 40 years ago as a graduate student, and now that shared dream has been lofted through the clouds and into reality," said Bruce Banerdt, InSight principal investigator at JPL.
The journey between Earth and Mars will take about six months with InSight scheduled to land on the Red Planet around 3 p.m. EST on Nov. 26th. The lander's mission will work until Nov. 24th, 2020, or about one year and 40 days on Mars - or a little less than two Earth years.
"In essence it [the mission] will take the vital signs of Mars -- pulse, temperature and much more. We like to say that it is the first thorough checkup since the planet formed 4.5 billion years ago,'' said Thomas Zurbuchen, the associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate.
Other missions to Mars, such as the Curiosity Lander and the Phoenix Mars Lander investigated the surface history of Mars, examining its geological features like canyons, volcanoes, rocks, and soil. InSight goes much deeper than that.
"InSight will help us unlock the mysteries of Mars in a new way, by not just studying the surface of the planet, but by looking deep inside to help us learn about the earliest building blocks of the planet," said JPL Director Michael Watkins.
The occasion also marked the first time the space agency has used the West Coast to launch its missions, instead of using Florida's Kennedy Space Center.
You can watch the launch in a video provided by NASA below: