NASA's next mission to Mars will launch from Vandenberg — and you'll be able to see it
NASA is returning to Mars, and this time, the mission will launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base.
The InSight lander is expected to launch from the base early in the morning May 5 on the back of an Atlas V rocket, in a spectacle that will easily be seen by millions of Californians between San Luis Obispo and San Diego counties, according to a news release.
The launch is expected to happen sometime after 4:05 a.m.; the launch window will be open for roughly two hours after that.
The two official viewing locations are at the Lompoc City Airport and St. Mary's Episcopal Church in Lompoc, though the launch will likely be visible from much of the Central Coast and Southern California.
The InSight will be the first interplanetary mission to launch from the West Coast, and it's NASA's first return to Mars since the Curiosity rover in August 2014.
The rocket will include a secondary payload: Mars Cube One, twin communications mini-satellites — or CubeSats — that will travel behind InSight on their six-month journey.
This will be a first test of miniaturized CubeSat technology — the diminutive solar-powered crafts contain propulsion devices to allow for navigational corrections — on another planet.
If they make it to Mars, the satellites will relay back InSight data as it enters the Martian atmosphere and lands.
Cal Poly engineering students assisted Tyvak Nano-Satellite Systems and JPL in preparing and testing the twin satellite units.
Mars trips are notoriously tricky: According to NASA, 43 missions to Mars have launched since 1960 (from both the United States and other countries) but only about 40 percent of those were successful.
The planet’s thin atmosphere makes landing a challenge, and its extreme temperature swings make it difficult to operate on the surface.
The InSight lander is expected to arrive on Mars around Nov. 26.
It will examine the planet's deep core to help scientists understand the formation of rocky planets like ours and the moon; it will also attempt to be the first to measure "marsquakes" (similar to earthquakes) and the formation of the planet's volcanoes.
Scientists and engineers working on the mission to Mars will visit Cal Poly on Saturday as part of the InSight Mission Roadshow.
The InSight mission roadshow will begin at 12:30 p.m. Saturday at Chumash auditorium. It also will visit the San Luis Obispo Children's Museum on Saturday and Sunday.
NASA’s next mission to Mars, following InSight, will be the Mars 2020 mission, in development to launch in the summer of 2020. It would seek signs of past microbial life at a carefully selected site and test extraction of oxygen from the carbon dioxide in Mars’ atmosphere.
This story was originally published April 27, 2018 at 5:53 PM with the headline "NASA's next mission to Mars will launch from Vandenberg — and you'll be able to see it."