NASA says it’s worked out a plan to redesign a faulty instrument on its InSight lander in time to send it to Mars in 2018.
The lander had been scheduled for liftoff this month from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, but in December, mission managers said they had to scratch the launch off their schedule because they couldn’t fix the instrument in time.
InSight is designed to monitor seismic activity deep beneath Mars’ surface. The mission’s name comes from a quasi-acronym for “Interior Exploration Using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport.” Studying the Martian subsurface could provide insights into the planet’s evolution and current geological activity.
