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United Launch Alliance is set to launch NASA’s InSight lander on Saturday, lifting off from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.
ULA – the rocket-building joint venture of Boeing and Lockheed Martin – will use an Atlas V rocket to lift the spacecraft off the Earth’s surface and send it on its way to the red planet. The launch has a scheduled window between 7:05 a.m. and 9:05 a.m. ET.
The InSight lander (an acronym, meaning “Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport”) is on a two-year mission to drill into the surface of Mars to study the planet’s crust.
All three parts of the Insight spacecraft – cruise stage, heat-absorbing shell and lander – were built by Lockheed. Once InSight reaches Mars, the it will disconnect from the cruise stage and begin entering the atmosphere.
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