1. gregladen
  2. It will be called InSight

It will be called InSight

By gregladen on March 4, 2012.

That is the new name of the proposed NASA mission to mars to Explore the Interior using Seismic Investigations.

"We chose the name InSight because we would literally peer into the interior of Mars to map out its structure," said JPL's Bruce Banerdt, the principal investigator. "With our geophysical instruments we will be able to see right through to the center of Mars, and will be able to map out how deeply the crust extends as well as the size of the core."

InSight is one of three missions vying to be selected for flight in the Discovery Program, a series of NASA missions to understand the solar system by exploring planets, moons, and small bodies such as comets and asteroids. All three mission teams are required to submit concept study reports to NASA on March 19.

More

Tags
Uncategorized

More like this

NASA announced key pre-selected Discovery Missions
Today, NASA announced three future key missions preselected as part of the Discovery program named GEMS, TiME and Comet Hopper. This is an important announcement, which was eagerly expected by our community. The NASA Discovery program is a low-cost mission ($425 million FY2010) program aimed at…
New Internet Tool to Explore the Solar System
NASA is giving the public the power to journey through the solar system using a new interactive Web-based tool. The "Eyes on the Solar System" interface combines video game technology and NASA data to create an environment for users to ride along with agency spacecraft and explore the cosmos.…
Exploration of an Extraterrestrial Ocean
By Dr. Cynthia Phillips Planetary geologist at the Carl Sagan Center for the Study of Life in the Universe, SETI Institute Jupiter's moon Europa could be the best place beyond the Earth to search for life. This small moon, about the size of Earth's Moon, is one of the Galilean moons first…
WISE Mission Assembled and Preparing for Launch
The Wide Field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) has been all snapped together and stuff and is ready to be launched into outer space from Vandenberg in November. This will be a major eye in the sky for cosmology, since it will be able to see things that heretofore only space insects could see....…

They chose the name but then clumped together a cumbersome acronym in order to spell it out? :

InSight stands for Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport

Hmm ... Is that really necessary? A bit of imagination and invocation of other things could suggest better alternatives name~wise. Barsoom? Wells? Malancandra? Mars Eagle? Lowell?

I'm also curious as to what the rival missions its up against are - can't seem to find anything on them via the link.

Very early days for InSight, hope it goes ahead and works out.