Tom Hoffman
California Institute of Technology, Pasadena CA
Title: InSight: Revealing the Interior of Mars
Biography
Biography: Tom Hoffman
Abstract
The InSight mission to Mars was selected as part of the NASA Discovery portfolio in 2012. InSight was launched on May 5, 2018 as the first interplanetary mission from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California and Landed successfully on Mars on November 26, 2018. The project management, Principal Investigator, systems engineering and operations were led primarily by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The mission utilized a heritage spacecraft and Lander from Lockheed Martin which had successfully landed on Mars before as the Phoenix mission. Significant changes were made to the Lander structure, power system and Entry, Descent and Landing system to adjust to the different mission parameters. Importantly, InSight is the first solar powered stationary lander designed to last a full Mars year. The main science instruments were contributed by CNES and DLR and were designed to provide the first glimpse into the Martian interior using seismometry, heat flux and geodesy. A particular challenge to InSight was development of the first system to robotically deploy these instruments from a Lander to the surface of another planet. Early results include the first recorded sounds from Mars and indications that the science instruments are performing nominally. This talk will describe these systems, detail some of the unique challenges of the InSight mission, and provide information on some of the early operational results.