InSight’s Mission to Mars Rescheduled on May 2018, NASA Announced

NASA announced that the InSight's mission on Mars has been rescheduled for May 5, 2018. This is due to persistent errors with one of the probe's science instruments.

According to Space Flight Now, the said date will be the next time Earth will be properly positioned with Mars that allows a direct route to the planet. Although the delay may increase the cost of the mission, the agency said that it is being assessed.

NASA might pay a penalty to United Launch Alliance, the InSight's mission's launch provider following the missed contract launch which was due on March 4. Last December, the officials decided to suspend the launch preparation that is supposed to be this year, after the engineers had troubles sealing an airtight vacuum enclosure that has the sensors to detect and study seismic tremors on the red planet.

The mission aims to investigate Mars' interior by measuring quakes and the planet's interior heat that is reaching its surface. The InSight's seismometer is managed by the French space agency, CNES, under an agreement with the InSight's science team and NASA.

"The science goals of InSight are compelling, and the NASA and CNES plans to overcome the technical challenges are sound," said John Grunsfeld, associate administrator for NASA's science mission directorate in Washington. "The quest to understand the interior of Mars has been a longstanding goal of planetary scientists for decades. We're excited to be back on the path for a launch, now in 2018."

Data on Mars' quakes and its interior heat with help NASA understand the planet's "deep interior." It could help the scientists to better understand the formation of all rocky planets, which includes Earth, according to NPR.

InSight was picked among the three finalists. One of them proposes a mission by sending a probe to a comet that will study multiple locations, and the other one suggests sending a boat to one of the Saturn's moon, Titan and travel across its hydrocarbon oceans.