On May 5, 2018 another mission to Mars, this time for "Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport."

Some day, hopefully in my lifetime, human apes will be walking on Mars. I wouldn't want the job. We apes evolved to live on this planet. But still we are going there.

I watched human apes walk on our moon on July 20, 1969. A trip to Mars would be even more fantastic.

Here is what NASA will do this week:

FEATURE | APRIL 27, 2018 NASA Sets Sights on May 5 Launch of InSight to Mars

NASA’s next mission to Mars, Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport (InSight), is scheduled to launch Saturday, May 5, on a first-ever mission to study the heart of the Red Planet. Coverage of prelaunch and launch activities begins Thursday, May 3, on NASA Television and the agency’s website.

InSight, the first planetary mission to take off from the West Coast, is targeted to launch at 4:05 a.m. PDT (7:05 a.m. EDT) from Space Launch Complex-3 at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California aboard a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket.

Launching on the same rocket is a separate NASA technology experiment known as Mars Cube One (MarCO). MarCO consists of two mini-spacecraft and will be the first test of CubeSat technology in deep space. They are designed to test new communications and navigation capabilities for future missions and may aid InSight communications.

Public Launch Viewing

There are two official launch viewing sites for the public in Lompoc, California. For information on these sites, visit:
https://mars.nasa.gov/insight/mission/timeline/launch/watch-in-person/

InSight will be the first mission to peer deep beneath the Martian surface, studying the planet's interior by measuring its heat output and listening for marsquakes, which are seismic events similar to earthquakes on Earth. It will use the seismic waves generated by marsquakes to develop a map of the planet’s deep interior. The resulting insight into Mars’ formation will help us better understand how other rocky planets, including Earth, were and are created.

JPL manages the InSight mission for the agency’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. InSight is part of NASA's Discovery Program, managed by the agency’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. The spacecraft, including cruise stage and lander, was built and tested by Lockheed Martin Space in Denver.

Several European partners, including France's space agency, the Centre National d'Étude Spatiales, and Germany’s DLR, are supporting the mission.

ULA, of Centennial, Colorado, is providing the Atlas V launch service. The Launch Services Program at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida is responsible for launch management.

The prelaunch briefing and launch commentary will be streamed on NASA TV and at https://www.nasa.gov/live

It will also be streamed live and archived at https://youtube.com/nasajpl/live