The InSight team is comprised of scientists and engineers from multiple disciplines and represents a unique collaboration between diverse countries and organizations around the world. The international science team includes co-investigators from the U.S., France, Germany, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Japan, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.
Mission Management
Led by Mars Exploration Rover (MER) project scientist Bruce Banerdt, a planetary geophysicist with a career-long interest in the processes that change the surfaces of planets, InSight would be a mission of opportunity - for scientists from diverse fields of study to look inside Mars to see the entire past of terrestrial planet formation.
W. Bruce Banerdt, principal investigator: Banerdt has spent the last 20 years working to put a seismometer on Mars; seismology is the "gold standard" for investigations on Earth, he says. In addition to heading InSight's science team, Banerdt would be the lead for the mission's SEIS instrument, which would bring the power of Earth-based seismology to the Red Planet. For him, InSight represents a unique opportunity to get a window into the "hidden" processes that shaped not only Mars, but also all the terrestrial planets.
Suzanne Smrekar, deputy principal investigator: Suzanne Smrekar, whose research focuses on the thermal evolution of planets, would be the lead for InSight's HP3 instrument. Smrekar has spent her career doing extensive testing and development on instruments designed to measure the thermal properties and heat flow on other planets. The InSight mission would give her a chance to put her research to work and gather key information about a missing piece of the evolutionary puzzle.
Sami Asmar, RISE investigation lead: An expert in advanced studies using radio waves, Sami Asmar would be the lead for InSight's RISE investigation. His work in the field of radio science is already contributing to the NASA GRAIL mission's investigation of the moon's gravity and evolution. For Asmar, bringing a radio science investigation to Mars represents not only a new challenge - but also an essential task in discovering the true properties of Mars and other terrestrial planets.
The InSight mission team also would include project manager Tom Hoffman and deputy project manager Henry Stone.
Science Team
The InSight science team would be composed of scientists from around the world with expertise on planetary and terrestrial geophysics.
Principal Investigator: W. Bruce Banerdt, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA, USA
Deputy Principal Investigator: Sue Smrekar, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA, USA
Co-Investigators:
Sami Asmar, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA, USA
Don Banfield, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA
Lapo Boschi, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich, Switzerland
Ulrich Christensen, Max Planck Institute for Solar System Studies, Lindau, Germany
Veronique Dehant, Royal Observatory of Belgium, Brussels, Belgium
Bill Folkner, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA, USA
Domenico Giardini, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich, Switzerland
Walter Goetz, Max Planck Institute for Solar System Studies, Lindau, Germany
Matt Golombek, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA, USA
Matthias Grott, DLR Institute for Planetology, Berlin, Germany
Troy Hudson, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA, USA
Catherine Johnson, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada
Günter Kargl, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna, Austria
Naoki Kobayashi, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, Tokyo, Japan
Philippe Lognonný, Institute de Physique du Globe, Paris, France
Justin Maki, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA, USA
David Mimoun, Institut Supýrieur de l'Aeronautique et de l'Espace, Toulouse, France
Antoine Mocquet, University of Nantes, Nantes, France
Paul Morgan, Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, AZ, USA
Mark Panning, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA
Tom Pike, Imperial College, London, UK
Tilman Spohn, DLR Institute for Planetology, Berlin, Germany
Jeroen Tromp, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA
Tim van Zoest, DLR Institute for Space Systems, Bremen, Germany
Renýe Weber, Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, AL, USA
Mark Wieczorek, Institute de Physique du Globe, Paris, France
Mission Partners
The InSight mission would be managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., a division of the California Institute of Technology. JPL would also be responsible for science leadership, system engineering, navigation, mission operations and instrument development for the InSight lander's arm and camera.
Lockheed Martin Space Systems would be responsible for spacecraft development, spacecraft assembly, integration and testing, launch operations and mission operations support.
The French space agency Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales (CNES) would manage, integrate and deliver the SEIS instrument. The Insitut de Physique du Globe (IPGP) would build the Very-Broad-Band (VBB) sensor assembly, Imperial College would build the Short Period (SP) sensors, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) would build the instrument electronics, the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Studies (MPS) would build the leveling system, and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) would build the wind/thermal shield.
The German Aerospace Center (DLR) would build and deliver the HP3 instrument.
