The InSight Mars Lander Mission Will End This Year
upstart writes:
NASA officials announced in a press conference today that the InSight lander on Mars will likely stop operating at the end of 2022, following three years of scientific work on the surface of the Red Planet.
InSight arrived on Mars in November 2018, and during its time on the Martian surface it has collected remarkable data on the planet's structure and the seismic events that emanate from its interior. [...]
But now, the lander is beset with dust that has settled on its solar panels, hindering its ability to take in light and generate power. The InSight team came up with a McGuyver-esque way of shaking some of that dust off: by scooping up Martian soil and dropping it on the dust, they were able to marginally clean up the panels. That maneuver was done successfully six times, according to Kathya Zamora Garcia, the Deputy Project Manager for InSight.
In its tenure, the lander has detected 1,313 marsquakes to date. When it began its science, InSight was capable of running for about 5,000 watt-hours per sol (Martian day); now, overwhelmed by the Martian dust, the lander can only manage 500 watt-hours per sol. [...]
Barring any Martian miracles, the fastidious InSight lander is on its last legs. For every one of its struggles and failures, the lander produced a bevy of data on the buried secrets of rocky worlds beyond our own. So thanks, InSight, for all your unheralded perseverance.
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