Microchip To Mars: Submit Your Name To Travel Onboard NASA Spacecraft

If you don’t think you will ever make it to Mars, you could at least send your name there. NASA’s InSight lander is making a trip to Mars next year and is taking people along in spirit.

Space enthusiasts can submit their names to travel to the Red Planet in a microchip on the lander. The space agency is accepting these passengers through the end of this month.

The spacecraft is scheduled to launch from California in mid-2018 and reach Mars sometime after Thanksgiving. A lander will drop to the surface, near the equator, and take measurements that will help scientists understand the inside of the planet.

Its instruments include a seismometer that will detect even the smallest movements in the ground and a probe that will be inserted several feet into the crust — deeper than any instrument has gone before — to measure temperature. The seismometer will pick up the Martian version of earthquakes and meteor strikes.

NASA says the data from the instruments “will improve our understanding about the formation and evolution of all rocky planets, including Earth.”

InSight, whose full name is Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport, was supposed to launch in 2016 but was delayed by a critical leak that was interfering with the seismometer. That section has since been repaired.

Before that original launch window, NASA had accepted names to be loaded onto a microchip on the spacecraft and brought along to Mars. According to the space agency, almost 827,000 people submitted their names.

This new effort involves adding a second microchip to the equipment, giving even more people a chance to get their names on Mars.

“Mars continues to excite space enthusiasts of all ages,” InSight mission principal investigator Bruce Banerdt, from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory said in the statement. “This opportunity lets them become a part of the spacecraft that will study the inside of the Red Planet.”

People who submit their names receive a “boarding pass” displaying their name and details of the mission, including the launch date and location and the type of rocket that is launching the spacecraft.

Those who participated in the first round of submissions are receiving updated boarding passes. These previous entries, and those who participated in a similar program a few years ago for the Orion spacecraft’s maiden voyage, have “frequent flier” miles racked up in the corners of their boarding passes.

“After InSight, the next opportunity to earn frequent flier points will be NASA’s Exploration Mission-1, the first flight bringing together the Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft to travel thousands of miles beyond the moon in preparation for human missions to Mars and beyond,” the space agency said.