NASA has begun testing its latest Mars Lander, called InSight, that is set to launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California and land on Mars approximately six months later.  Once on the surface, the mission is scheduled to last approximately two Earth years, or 720 Earth days and is expected to begin delivering data in October 2016.

NASA has had remarkable success dating back to 1976 with the Viking 1 and 2, Pathfinder and Sojourner in 1997, Spirit and Opportunity in 2004 and Curiosity in 2012.  Now it hopes to continue that success with this next probe.

"Today, our robotic scientific explorers are paving the way, making great progress on the journey to Mars," says Jim Green, director of NASA's Planetary Science Division at the agency's headquarters in Washington. "Together, humans and robotics will pioneer Mars and the solar system."

The car sized lander will have a different mission from previous rovers.  Instead of searching for live or studying the surface of the Red Planet, its mission will be to study the interior of the planet.  InSight is, in fact, an unwieldy acronym that stands for Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy, and Heat Transport.  Currently NASA is testing the craft's ability to operate in and survive deep space travel as well as its ability to survive the harsh conditions on the surface of Mars itself.

Testing will last about seven months.  During that time NASA will expose the lander to extreme temperatures, vacuum-space conditions and near-zero air pressure in an effort to emulate the conditions of the surface of Mars. 

"The assembly of InSight went very well and now it's time to see how it performs," says Stu Spath, InSight program manager at Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver. "The environmental testing regimen is designed to wring out any issues with the spacecraft so we can resolve them while it's here on Earth. This phase takes nearly as long as assembly, but we want to make sure we deliver a vehicle to NASA that will perform as expected in extreme environments."

Once testing is completed early next year, NASA will begin setting up the launch itself ahead of the March target date. "It's great to see the spacecraft put together in its launch configuration," says InSight Project Manager Tom Hoffman at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California. "Many teams from across the globe have worked long hours to get their elements of the system delivered for these tests. There still remains much work to do before we are ready for launch, but it is fantastic to get to this critical milestone."