NASA is providing “online boarding passes” to more than 2.4 million people for an upcoming Mars mission. The people who are getting the “boarding passes” are those who registered on NASA’s website and show an interest in their names being sent to the Red Planet through upcoming InSight (Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy, and Heat Transport) Mars mission, the Times of India reported.

In 2016, NASA revealed its plan to launch the InSight mission in 2018. The space agency then invited people to send their names for this mission. The American space agency has now announced that a total of 2,429,807 people from different parts of the world registered on its website. The United States topped the list with 676,773 entries. China and India were second and third respectively with 262,752 and 138,899 people sending their names to NASA.

According to NASA, the names of all these people will now be imprinted on a silicon microchip. Engineers will use an electron beam to create the letters, and the microchip will then be sent to Mars through InSight mission in 2018. NASA also said that it is not accepting submissions anymore as the deadline to register on its website expired last week.

A lander on the surface of Mars[Image by NASA/Getty Images]

The launch window for InSight mission will open on May 5, 2018. The mission will be launched through an Atlas V 401 rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. The mission landing is slated to be completed at Elysium Planitia site near the equator on November 26, 2018.

InSight is a 720-day NASA Discovery Program mission designed with a primary aim of collecting data about Marsquakes. Through this mission, NASA intends to put a geophysical lander on the surface of Mars to gather more data about the interior of the planet. The American space agency also wants to improve its understanding regarding how rocky planets in our solar system were shaped through different processes billions of years ago.

The InSight mission was initially scheduled to be launched in March 2016, but a vacuum leak in the Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure instrument forced the space agency to postpone the mission for 2018. The SEIS instrument installed on the lander can measure even the slightest ground movements. This instrument is equipped with three main sensors that require a flawless vacuum seal around them to function properly.

The original budget for the NASA’s InSight mission was $675 million. However, the delay in the mission has added an additional $153.8 million to that budget.

[Featured Image by ESA/Getty Images]