Another mission to Mars to check its interior is set to happen in 2016, NASA has announced.
The mission called InSight will be a two-year mission that will investigate the planets core to find out whether it is liquid or solid. It will also explore why the crust is not divided into drifting tectonic plates, such as Earths'.
"The recent successful landing of the Curiosity rover has galvanized public interest in space exploration and today's announcement makes clear there are more exciting Mars missions to come," said NASA administrator Charles Bolden in a Press Release.
He also stated that exploration of Mars is a top priority for NASA and InSight will ensure that they will continue to learn more about Mars and lay groundwork for future human missions there.
The mission will build upon spacecraft technology that was used in 2007Phoenix by NASA which showed that water existed near the surface of polar regions on Mars.
The mission will be capped at $425 million which is small compared to Curiosity Rover's $2.5 billion. The InSight probe will include the Kepler space telescope, the probe which has discovered a number of exoplanets orbiting starts since its launch in 2009.
InSight will use sensors to measure Mars' core based on vibrations and heat that travel through the crust of Mars. Scientists believe that the core isn't large enough to cause shifting in its crust but recent discoveries show that there might actually be very slow shifting tectonic plates.
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