NASA wants to look deep into the guts of Mars.
The space agency decided Monday to launch a relatively low-cost robotic lander in 2016 to check out what makes the core of the red planet so different. NASA's Discovery program picked a Mars flight called Insight over two other proposals costing no more than $425 million.
The mission includes two instruments that would examine the geology of Mars in depth, focusing on its core. It would explore the core's size, composition, temperature and wobble.
The mission will be run by NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab.
The decision comes as JPL's successful $2.5 billion Mars Curiosity rover is starting to explore the planet's surface. Earlier this year, NASA pulled out of two Mars missions with the European Space Agency.
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