Bench Checkout of InSight's Seismometer Instrument

The Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure (SEIS) instrument for NASA's InSight mission to Mars undergoes a checkout for the spacecraft's assembly, test and launch operations (ATLO) in this photo taken July 20, 2017, in a Lockheed Martin clean room facility in Littleton, Colorado. The SEIS was provided by France's national space agency (CNES) with collaboration from the United States, the United Kingdom, Switzerland and Germany.

The InSight mission (for Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport) is scheduled to launch in May 2018 and land on Mars Nov. 26, 2018. It will investigate processes that formed and shaped Mars and will help scientists better understand the evolution of our inner solar system's rocky planets, including Earth.

InSight is part of NASA's Discovery Program of competitively selected solar system exploration missions with highly focused scientific goals. NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, manages the Discovery Program for the agency's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the Caltech in Pasadena, California, manages InSight for the NASA Science Mission Directorate. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, built the spacecraft.