The US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is preparing up for the May 5 launch of its new Mars lander from the West Coast.

The robotic INSIGHT, short for Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport, will explore the deep interior of Mars to study how rocky planets and their moons were formed.

The spacecraft will be launched from the Vandenberg Air Force Base in California instead of the Kennedy Space center in Florida, from where most of NASA’s space missions have taken off for the first time in history.

INSIGHT is retained in a “clean room” at the Astrotech Space Operations facility at North Vandenberg to prevent bacteria contamination.

NASA and prime contractor Lockheed Martin will attach the full spacecraft to its payload adapter and payload fairing and transport the assembled lander to Vandenberg’s Space Launch Complex-3 (SLC-3), according to NASASpaceFlight.com.


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