NASA will collaborate with the French National Center of Space Studies to send another rover to Mars in 2016 to study the red planet’s interior structure.Charles Bolden, NASA administrator, and CNES President Jean-Yves Le Gall signed a partnership agreement Monday for the InSight project, NASA said Monday.
“The research generated by this collaborative mission will give our agencies more information about the early formation of Mars, which will help us understand more about how Earth evolved,” Bolden said.
U.S. and French space researchers have worked together for more than 20 years, according to the article.
The InSight Mars Lander is scheduled for a March 2016 launch to examine tectonic and meteorite activities on the red planet using a CNES-made instrument.
CNES is also working with space organizations in Germany, Switzerland and the U.K. to develop the Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure technology.
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. runs the InSight program.
