After a month on the road with the #MarsRoadshow traveling around California and sharing the excitement of NASA's InSight Mission to put the first seismometer on the Martian surface, IRIS arrived at Vandenburg Air Force Base in California to watch the launch of the first interplanetary mission from the West Coast!
InSight launched on time May 5 at 4:05 am PDT, successfully separated from the launch vehicle, and is on its way to Mars! The launch is only the beginning; the trip to Mars takes about six months. The journey is about 301 million miles (485 million kilometers). InSight's landing on Mars is planned for November 26, 2018, around noon PST (3:00 pm EST/8:00 pm UTC).
IRIS is an Educational Partner on the InSight Mission, with the goal of engaging students with seismic data from Mars. Working with the IRIS Data Managment Center, IRIS Education and Public Outreach expect data from the seismometer to be available in the spring of 2019 to students and the public! Classrooms will be able to stream Martian seismic data, allowing students to watch for marsquakes and meteorite impacts with us!
We collaborated on an educator workshop at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in March 2018, join us at future workshops to get involved!
 |
 |
|
|
|
||
| The general public engages in activities and learns about seismology and Mars during events in California. | ||
Seismogram of the Mars InSight launch displayed by jAmaSeis.
