NASA’s InSight Mars Lander Goes Silent: NPR

The end of InSight has long been in sight, the NASA lander which has been stationed on Mars since 2018.

project officials warned in may that the lander would likely stop working by the end of the year due to dust that had collected on its solar panels, diminishing its power source. In early November, NASA announced that the end was near and began taking steps to end the mission.

The lander has also been transparent about its impending demise. On twitterwhere he provides regular updates, in a tone of what some might call sad acceptance, to his nearly 800,000 followers.

is shared new discoveries, promises to continue operating while you can, news of your upcoming retirement, tributes to friends made along the way and thanks to the supporters who sent it postcards of all the world.

And on Monday afternoon ET, it posted what could be its final update: an image of the planet’s rocky surface and horizon line.

“My power is really low, so this may be the last image I can send,” said the lander tweeted. “Don’t worry about me though, my time here has been both productive and serene. If I can continue to speak to my mission team, I will, but I’ll be leaving soon. Thanks for sticking with me.”

NASA announced in a blog post that InSight had not responded to communications from Earth the previous day. The mission said their last contact was on Thursday and it is not known what “prompted the change in their energy.”

The team will try again to reach the lander: NASA will declare mission over when InSight loses two consecutive communication sessions, but it doesn’t sound optimistic.

“The lander’s power has been declining for months, as expected, and it is assumed that InSight may have reached the end of its operations,” the agency said.

The legacy of the lander is out of this world.

InSight, whose name is actually short for Interior Exploration Using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy, and Heat Transport, did much to be proud of during its extended stay on Mars.

It was sent there in 2018 to help study the “planet”interior space“, that is, its crust, mantle and core.

The almost 20 feet long, 800 pound ship met so many of his goals in his first “Martian year” (almost two Earth years) that his the mission was expanded until the end of 2022.

Their main mission was to use an instrument called a seismometer to track Marsquakes (yes, other planets have them, too). The shape and timing of the waves generated by earthquakes shed light on the interior composition of the planet, such as NPR’s Joe Palca reported at the beginning of this year.

“Before the InSight mission, we had no idea that there were going to be Marsquakes,” Northwestern University planetary scientist Suzan van der Lee told Palca.

InSight not only became the first to detect earthquakes on another planet, it went on to measure more than 1,300 seismic events.

NASA says their findings gave scientists new insights into the composition and structure of the planet’s layers, including how quickly heat seeps out of them, which in turn deepens their understanding of the geological history of Earth. the surface of Mars and ultimately its ability over time to support Life.

Other notable InSight contributions include bringing the first magnetometer instrument to the surface of Mars (so it can detect magnetic signals) and collecting the most comprehensive weather data of any mission sent there.

It also detected a magnitude 4 earthquake that scientists later determined was caused by a meteor impact, leading another Mars orbiter to discover a layer of water ice that had been buried underground. NASA called that series of events “an icy bonanza.”

InSight principal investigator Bruce Banerdt told NPR earlier this year that the team had accomplished everything they set out to do, except for a disappointing heat flux experiment. And he echoed the praise in NASA’s early November update.

“Ultimately, we can see Mars as a layered planet, with different thicknesses and compositions,” Banerdt said. “We’re starting to puzzle out the details. Now it’s not just this puzzle; it’s actually a living, breathing planet.”

The mission will end, but the exploration of Mars continues

Can a spaceship really meet its death from dust? InSight shared some ideas in a Thoughtful Twitter Thread back in november.

Essentially, he said a dusting system would have made the mission more expensive and complex, plus he had already doubled his planned length of stay.

The InSight team had prepared for the lander’s expiration by preserving its data and adding it to an international archive, shutting down many of its systems to conserve power, and packaging the full-size engineering model of the lander known as “ForeSight.” .

NASA says that once it declares the mission over, it will keep listening “for a while, just in case.”

“There will be no heroic measures to re-establish contact with InSight,” he said. “While a mission-saving event — a strong gust of wind, for example, cleaning the panels — is not out of the question, it is considered unlikely.”

will join the various other landers who call Mars their final resting place.

And, as he pointed out in one of his final tweetsthere is much more Mars content available: you can follow the NASA videos Perseverance Y Curiosity rovers for more dispatches from the Red Planet.