Take it as red: UBC prof thrilled to be part of Mars launch
Mission will help shed light on where and how often quakes occur on planet
A University of B.C. geophysicist is excited to be pulling an allnighter to witness the launch of a historic mission to Mars.
Prof. Catherine Johnson and an international NASA team have been working for close to a decade on what would be the first interplanetary launch from the U.S. West Coast.
The mission is to put a spacecraft lander called InSight in the Elysium Planitia region in Mars’ northern hemisphere. Its goal is to test the interior of the red planet.
“We’ve had lots of rovers in the last decade on Mars looking at the surface and the rocks on the surface,” said Johnson, in a phone interview from Baltimore where she was attending a conference on Mercury. “We know lots about it on the surface, but we know relatively very little about its interior.”
On May 5, an Atlas V rocket carrying the lander will launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California during a two-hour launch window starting at 4:05 a.m. InSight is expected to land on Mars on Nov. 26.
It is equipped with a seismometer to detect ground motion or “marsquakes.” It has another instrument that measures the flow of heat in Mars’ subsurface.
“It’s important to know where quakes occur and how often they occur,” said Johnson. “Are they happening on faults we know about? Are they happening deep in Mars?”
Johnson said the seismometer will also pick up measurements on the electrical conductivity of subsurface rocks — an indication of how much water is bound up
We know lots about (Mars) on the surface, but we know relatively very little about its interior.
in the composition of the rocks.
“One of the key things we want to know about Mars is its inventory of water,” said Johnson, who will be analyzing the data postmission with UBC PhD student Anna Mittelholz. “This is the first time we’ll be able to answer this question with measurements.”
Johnson has been directly involved in the competitively selected mission since about 2010, the only scientist from a Canadian institution. She has also worked on NASA’s Messenger Discovery mission to Mercury.
The opportunity to launch a spacecraft to Mars occurs only every two years when Earth and Mars are closest in orbit around the sun. The lander was supposed to launch in 2016, but the mission was delayed after a vacuum seal on the equipment failed.
This year, the window to launch the spacecraft is from this Saturday to June 8, with a two-hour span each day.
“The goal is to go up at the first opportunity,” said Johnson. “It’s looking good. We are all optimistic and very excited.”