NASA · lander ended
InSight
NASA's InSight lander listened to marsquakes for four years and revealed the size and structure of the Martian core and crust.
- Launch
- 5 May 2018
- End of mission
- 15 December 2022
- Distance from Earth today
- 213.1 million km1.424 AU · light: 11 min 51 s
- Distance from the Sun today
- 238.7 million km1.595 AU
The spacecraft is at Mars.
Trajectory
Trajectory: JPL Horizons vectors (spacecraft -189) every 1 days, projected onto the ecliptic; compressed distance scale.
Mission timeline
- First interplanetary launch from the US West Coast (Vandenberg)
- Landing in Elysium Planitia
- First marsquake recorded
- Last signal from the dust-covered lander
- NASA declares the mission over
Targets: Mars
About the mission
InSight was a stationary lander built to study the deep interior of Mars rather than its surface. Its robotic arm placed a very sensitive seismometer on the ground, which recorded more than a thousand marsquakes and meteorite impacts and let scientists measure the thickness of the crust and the size of the liquid metal core. A self-hammering heat probe could not dig deep enough in the sticky soil, but radio tracking of the lander refined how Mars wobbles on its axis. Dust slowly covered its solar panels, and the last contact came in December 2022.
Landing sites
Texture: Solar System Scope (CC BY 4.0) · names: IAU/USGS Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature
| Body | Site | Date | Coordinates |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mars | Elysium Planitia | 26 November 2018 | 4.502° N, 135.623° E |