Next year NASA is launching its InSight lander to Mars to study the rock deep below the surface, so they can try to understand how the planet formed. Where on the Martian surface will InSight land, and how/why was that site chosen?
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All four candidate landing sites were identified in the Elysium Planitia and the most likely landing site (pending final evaluation) will be this one, for providing the smoothest terrain in the landing ellipse:
And this is the context map:
Sources and further reading:
answered Aug 25, 2015 at 16:11
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1$\begingroup$ It sure is close to Curiosity. Hmmmm... $\endgroup$– PearsonArtPhoto ♦Commented Aug 25, 2015 at 16:22
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1$\begingroup$ Looks like about 600 km, so not close at all on the scale of roving. $\endgroup$ Commented Aug 25, 2015 at 17:16
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$\begingroup$ Yeah, I'll update a bit to add a few things. Landing ellipse alone is 139 x 27 km with 99.5% confidence, about 470 km North of MSL. Terrain is also completely different to MSL's Gale Crater. I'll add some criteria from mepag.nasa.gov/meeting/2014-05/… but am still searching for the February 24 MEPAG presentation slides that would include a bit more data from HiRISE. $\endgroup$ Commented Aug 25, 2015 at 17:33
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1$\begingroup$ @MarkAdler - Mark Watney disagrees. :p $\endgroup$ Commented Aug 25, 2015 at 20:17
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$\begingroup$ Ok, but Watney has a much, much bigger rover. Two actually. $\endgroup$ Commented Aug 25, 2015 at 20:24