NASA’s InSight spacecraft has stopped responding to communications from Earth. The module’s capacities have been declining for several months due to dust buildup on its solar panels, meaning it may have reached the end of its operations.
NASA will declare a mission over when InSight fails to respond to two consecutive communication attempts, but only if the cause of the communication failure is the spacecraft itself. When that happens, NASA’s Deep Space Network will stay on standby for a period of time just in case.
“My energy is very low, so this may be the last image I can send. But don’t worry about me: my time here has been productive and serene. If I can continue to talk to my mission team, I will, but No I’ll be done soon. Thanks for sticking with me,” the NASA engineers wrote on Twitter.
After a journey of six and a half months, InSight touched down on November 26, 2018 in the Elysium Planitia region of Mars, with the goal of exploring the deep interior of the red planet.
Over the past four years, data collected by the probe has provided details about the crust, mantle and core of Mars, including the planet’s seismic activity, which has led to the recording of more than 1,100 “marsquakes.”
One of the last tremors detected on Mars by InSight occurred on December 24, 2021, but the cause of the quake was only recently discovered: a meteor collision, which caused a crater approximately 150 meters in diameter and 21 meters deep.
In the first year of its mission to Mars, the InSight spacecraft recorded twenty earthquakes and discovered clues indicating that there are reservoirs of water in the subsoil of the red planet.
On December 19, 2018, this probe successfully installed a seismograph. It was the first scientific instrument to be placed directly on the surface of Mars.
InSight was NASA’s second robotic mission to Mars after Curiosity, to explore the planet’s surface since 2012.
Source: TSF
