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Last Day to Register: September 8, 2015 (Midnight ET) |
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August 18, 2015
Mars enthusiasts around the world can
participate in NASA’s journey to Mars
by adding their names to a silicon microchip headed to the Red Planet aboard
NASA's InSight Mars lander,
scheduled to launch next year.
"Our next step in the journey to Mars
is another fantastic mission to the surface," said Jim Green, director
of planetary science at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "By
participating in this opportunity to send your name aboard InSight to the Red
Planet, you're showing that you're part of that journey and the future of
space exploration."
Submissions will be accepted until Sept. 8.
To send your name to Mars aboard InSight, go to:
The fly-your-name opportunity comes with
“frequent flier” points to reflect an individual's personal participation in
NASA’s journey to Mars, which will span multiple missions and multiple
decades. The InSight mission offers the second such opportunity for space
exploration fans to collect points by flying their names aboard a NASA
mission, with more opportunities to follow.
Last December, the names of 1.38 million
people flew on a chip aboard the first flight of NASA's Orion spacecraft,
which will carry astronauts to deep space destinations including Mars and an
asteroid. After InSight, the next opportunity to earn frequent flier points
will be NASA's Exploration Mission-1, the first planned test flight bringing
together the Space Launch System rocket and Orion capsule in preparation for
human missions to Mars and beyond.
InSight will launch from Vandenberg Air
Force Base, California in March 2016 and land on Mars Sept. 28, 2016. The mission
is the first dedicated to the investigation of the deep interior of the
planet. It will place the first seismometer directly on the surface of Mars
to measure Martian quakes and use seismic waves to learn about the planet's
interior. It also will deploy a self-hammering heat probe that will burrow
deeper into the ground than any previous device on the Red Planet. These and
other InSight investigations will improve our understanding about the
formation and evolution of all rocky planets, including Earth.
For additional information about the
InSight mission, visit:
You can follow the mission on Facebook and
Twitter at:
and
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