A Mars mission set to launch in March 2016 has been suspended after a technical problem with a seismometer meant to study the red planet's interior could not be fixed, NASA announced.
NASA put the Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations Geodesy and Heat Transport (InSight) mission on hold after efforts to repair a leak in one part of the science payload's primary instrument proved unsuccessful.
The InSight spacecraft recently arrived at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California to be prepared for a March 18 launch, but the mission has been grounded, NASA officials said.
"The decision follows unsuccessful attempts to repair a leak in a section of the prime instrument in the science payload," NASA said on its website.
The seismometer was built by the French space agency CNES, which tried unsuccessfully to repair a leak in the vacuum canister that houses it.
NASA officials determined there is insufficient time to resolve the leak issue, complete whatever work that would entail, and perform the thorough testing needed to ensure a successful InSight mission.
Known as the Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure, or SEIS, the seismographic instrument for InSight was designed to land on the Martian surface to listen for faint rumblings — Marsquakes — in the planet's crust to help understand the deep interior structure of Mars.
Previous efforts to put a seismograph on the red planet during NASA's Viking mission in the 1970s were unsuccessful.
Researchers were quick to express their unhappiness with the InSight delay.
"We're all just pretty disappointed right now. Devastated would be a better word," says Lisa Pratt, an Indiana University biogeochemist and chairwoman of a NASA Mars advisory committee. "Everyone has been waiting to get a seismic instrument on Mars after Viking."
The InSight seismometer is considered the key to understanding the makeup and boundaries of the red planet's crust, mantle and core.
"InSight's investigation of the red planet's interior is designed to increase understanding of how all rocky planets, including Earth, formed and evolved," said mission principle investigator Bruce Banerdt at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.
Scientists expect Mars to retain evidence about early development of rocky planets, evidence that on Earth has long been erased by internal churning of a type Mars hasn't undergone.
Because of launch requirements that the relative orbits of Earth and Mars place on any mission, NASA will have to wait at least 26 months before it can attempt another launch of the $425 million InSight mission. For InSight, the 2016 launch window existed from March 4 to March 30.
