On Sunday, May 6, 2018 at 7:37:43 PM UTC-4, Jeff Findley wrote:
In article ,
says...
On Sunday, May 6, 2018 at 11:50:27 AM UTC-4, Jeff Findley wrote:
In article , says...

On May/6/2018 at 12:45 AM, wrote :
"An Atlas 5 rocket soared into space early on Saturday from Vandenberg Air Force
Base in California, carrying NASA?s first robotic lander designed for exploring
the deep interior of another planet on its voyage to Mars."


"The new 800-pound (360-kg) spacecraft marks the 21st U.S.-launched Martian
exploration, dating to the Mariner fly-by missions of the 1960s. Nearly two dozen
other Mars missions have been launched by other nations.

Once settled, the solar-powered InSight will spend two years - about one Martian
year - plumbing the depths of the planet?s interior for clues to how Mars took
form and, by extension, the origins of the Earth and other rocky planets."

See:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-s...-idUSKBN1I60DF

Does anyone know why they are launching from the west coast? It seems to
me to be not optimal for a Mars mission.

To avoid launch congestion at Cape Canaveral and insure it was launched
at the optimal time. Also, the version of Atlas had plenty of
performance for the mission. InSight is only 800 lbs, so it's
relatively light for a Mars mission.

So did they launch it to the south or to the west? Going west they
would incur a big energy penalty due to the rotation of the Earth.

This info, and much more, is in the InSight Press Kit. Click on "Launch
Sequences".

It launched southward. West is even worse for performance than
launching south.

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/press_...sight/mission/

I knew that Vandenburg is used for polar orbit launches, and that
westward would be used rarely if at all because of performance
issues.

As I suspected, they launched it to the south into a polar orbit,
and after less than one orbit they headed for Mars.

"The shape of the parking orbit is nearly circular at an altitude
of 115 miles (185 kilometers). However, the spacecraft will not
complete even one orbit. After the Centaur main engine's first
burn, the Centaur-spacecraft stack will coast in the parking orbit
until it reaches the proper position for start of the second
Centaur burn [trajectory to Mars]."