Insight Mission May Offer Clues to Mars Mystery

Evidence suggests that Mars was once a habitable planet, Mark Wallace, an engineer from Jet Propulsion Lab, told a captive audience at the Glendora Public Library Saturday.

Remnants of once large bodies water suggest that Mars was very much like earth. But what happened?

Wallace, the lead trajectory analyst for the newest Mars mission Insight said the upcoming mission may offer some clues into the mystery.

Part of the Glendora Public Library’s JPL series, Wallace spoke to an audience of more than 70 space enthusiasts, offering details of plans to send a data-gathering spacecraft to Mars in 2016.

Wallace said the two-year mission will study the physical makeup of the red planet, including taking a look at the interior and crust of the planet.

“It can not only tell us how Mars formed, but we’ll be able to generalize from that and see how the interior of the earth or moon formed,” said Wallace.

Wallace described the painstaking and intricately detailed process involved in sending a spacecraft 249 million miles from earth to Mars.

With hundreds of JPL employees and workers from around the world, as well as years of work and more than $450 million funding the project, there is little room for error, said Wallace.

A variety of factors can impact the mission, including difficult weather conditions, unfamiliar terrain, and a long list of possible mechanical breakdowns.

 “The tolerance for failure is incredibly low,” said Wallace. “Everything has to happen exactly right the first time. We go through a lot of effort to understand our spacecraft, how it works, understanding everything we can about the system so that we can be overcome the things that could go wrong.”

But the years of preparation and hours of manpower will be worth it and hopefully, said Wallace, the data will offer a valuable piece to understanding the red planet.

“What we want to know is, ‘Why is Mars so different from earth now?’” said Wallace. “Understanding what the differences are now is to me less interesting than why it’s different.”