[U X4] Perfect Launch And On Course For Mars, Now -- From California -- For The NASA Insight Mining/Drilling Mission...

Flawlessly nominal early this morning, five by five, in all respects -- so, now on to. . . Barsoom:

It is (for me) eternally humbling -- to ponder the precision of the physics calculations (and all the flawless engineering -- of a gossamer winged spacecraft -- married to a hulking rocket). . . all of which allows a select few of our species (solely on scientific merit) to toss a pebble some 300 million miles into the inky blackness, and land it softly, effectively on a pre-selected dime, in the middle of thousands of square miles of a cinnamon-powdered but long-frozen desert plain. . . essentially all by blind calculating, and dead reckoning.

I am agog -- each time we make it out of Earth's pull, and whisk off to a neighbor in the distant Southern Summer night skies. Here's what you need to know, from NASA:

. . . .The early-morning liftoff on Saturday of the Mars InSight lander will mark the first time in history an interplanetary launch will originate from the West Coast. InSight will launch from the U.S. Air Force Vandenberg Air Force Base Space Launch Complex 3E. The two-hour launch window will open on May 5 at 4:05 a.m. PDT (7:05 a.m. EDT).

InSight, for Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport, will launch aboard a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket. InSight will study the deep interior of Mars to learn how all rocky planets formed, including Earth and its Moon. The lander's instruments include a seismometer to detect marsquakes, and a probe that will monitor the flow of heat from the planet's interior.

The ULA rocket will carry the spacecraft over the Channel Islands just off the California Coast and continue climbing out over the Pacific, shadowing the coastline south beyond Baja California. InSight’s Atlas will reach orbit about 13 minutes after launch, when the rocket is about 1,200 miles (1,900 kilometers) northwest of Isabella Island, Ecuador. . . .

InSight's landing on Mars is planned for Nov. 26, 2018, around noon PST (3 p.m. EST). . . .

JPL manages InSight for NASA's Science Mission Directorate. InSight is part of NASA's Discovery Program, managed by the agency's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. The InSight spacecraft, including cruise stage and lander, was built and tested by Lockheed Martin Space in Denver. NASA's Launch Services Program at the agency's Kennedy Space Center in Florida provides launch management. United Launch Alliance of Centennial, Colorado, is NASA's launch service provider of the Atlas 5 rocket. A number of European partners, including France's Centre National d'Études Spatiales (CNES) and the German Aerospace Center (DLR), are supporting the InSight mission. In particular, CNES provided the Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure (SEIS) instrument, with significant contributions from the Max Planck Institute for Solar Systems Research (MPS). DLR provided the Heat Flow and Physical Properties Package (HP3) instrument. . . .

I'll likely rise early -- to catch it all live, on NASA TV. Now you know -- g'night, all. . . .



UPDATED 05.05.18 @ 6 AM EDT -- Added a kid friendly explainer of the mission:



Original video:



Oh. And back here on Jasoom, your Kentucky Derby winner is... Justify. Smile. . . . "'cause we're justified and we're ancient. . . and we like to roam the land. . . ."

नमस्ते