NASA’s mission to Mars, Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport (InSight), recently launched from the West Coast’s Space Launch Complex-3 at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California aboard a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket, all along with an assist from Air Products (AP).

AP supplied vital industrial gases for ULA’s Atlas V Rocket, which will help carry InSight on its six-month journey to Mars, set to arrive at the planet in November. AP supplied its proprietary helium pumping system, the only one-of-its-kind in the industrial gas industry, which is key to the pressurization of helium, as well as the helium for the mission used for pressurization and purging of the fuel propellant tanks, and also provided liquid nitrogen for rocket instrument purging, and liquid oxygen as part of the overall rocket fuel mix.

“For over 60 years AP has had a working relationship with the space program. AP’ long space travel history has also included fueling and providing technical services to NASA travels of the Orion, the Space Shuttle, Apollo, and earlier Mercury missions,” said Marie Ffolkes, president – Industrial Gases Americas at AP.