Curiosity, the sequel: What's in store for NASA's next Mars lander
Planned for 2016, NASA's next mission to Mars will examine the planet's geophysics.
NASA's InSight mission, planned for 2016, will examine the geophysics of our neighboring planet. In this short documentary, scientists from the project describe what they'll be looking for on our neighboring project.
NASA describes the scope of the project on their site:
InSight (Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport) is a proposed NASA Discovery Program mission that will place a single geophysical lander on Mars to study its deep interior. But InSight is more than a Mars mission - it is a terrestrial planet explorer that will address one of the most fundamental issues of planetary and solar system science - understanding the processes that shaped the rocky planets of the inner solar system (including Earth) more than four billion years ago.
By using sophisticated geophysical instruments, InSight will delve deep beneath the surface of Mars, detecting the fingerprints of the processes of terrestrial planet formation, as well as measuring the planet's "vital signs": Its "pulse" (seismology), "temperature" (heat flow probe), and "reflexes" (precision tracking).