Looking Forward -- To May 2018 -- When Insight Mars Launch Window Opens...

. . .When the launch window opens for the Mars Insight mission, I'll (almost certainly) be on the rail, at Churchill Downs -- but I doubt the launch will take place on that first weekend of window opening. . . . Or at least I'm hoping it won't.

This is a mission to plumb beneath the surface of Mars, with 15 feet deep drilling — and seismometer imaging -- to hopefully get answers about how these "rocky" planets form -- at least in our local neighborhood.



Here's the backgrounder, from JPL/NASA:

. . . .InSight -- short for Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport -- is a stationary lander scheduled to launch as early as May 5. It will be the first mission ever dedicated to Mars' deep interior, and the first NASA mission since the Apollo moon landings to place a seismometer on the soil of another planet. . . .

Now you know -- onward, as a soft Sunday evening snow begins wheeling silently to Earth, here out my sliding glass doors. . . onward -- to the morrow -- with a wide grin. . . . We will be watching, on "may the fourth be with you" day, in any event.

नमस्ते