‘My time winds down on Mars’: Nasa prepares to bid farewell to InSight lander
2 min read 02 Nov 2022, 06:41 PM ISTNASA in their report has informed that the the spacecraft's, which completed almost four Earth years on Mars, power generation is depleting with timeNASA informed that ‘the end is expected to come in the next few weeks.’
PremiumInSight Lander (Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport), National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) designed spacecraft to give Mars its first thorough checkup since it formed 4.5 billion years ago, is about to end its mission on the Red Planet. In an emotional statement the spacecraft said that ‘the day is coming when I will fall silent’.
NASA in their report has informed that the the spacecraft's, which completed almost four Earth years on Mars, power generation is depleting with time. This is happening owing to increasing windblown dust on the solar panels. power generation continues to decline as windblown dust on its solar panels thickens.
NASA informed that ‘the end is expected to come in the next few weeks.’
"The day is coming when I’ll fall silent, ending my nearly four Earth years (over two Mars years) of studying the Red Planet. As my time winds down on Mars, my team is helping make sure scientists can get the most out of everything I’ve gathered," InSight said in a tweet as engineers begin farewell preparations.
Here's what the winding down process looks like
A 25-to-30-member operations team is trying to squeeze the most information they can out of InSight int he few weeks that is left. They’ve also begun taking steps to wind down the mission.
Data preservation
The first and foremost job will be to preserve all the data the spacecraft has secured in the past two Mars years. According to NASA, the lander data has yielded details about Mars’ interior layers, its liquid core, the surprisingly variable remnants beneath the surface of its mostly extinct magnetic field, weather on this part of Mars, and lots of quake activity.
InSight’s seismometer has detected more than 1,300 marsquakes since the lander touched down in November 2018, the largest measuring a magnitude 5. It even recorded quakes from meteoroid impacts. Observation from this data will help in understanding how all rocky worlds, including Earth and its Moon, form.
Powering down InSight Lander
The InSight team had, earlier this year, turned off all of its science instruments in order to keep the seismometer running as the power dwindled fast. The team even switched off the fault protection system that would otherwise automatically shut down the seismometer if the system detects that the lander’s power generation is dangerously low.
NASA also informed that recently, after a regional dust storm added to the lander’s dust-covered solar panels, the team decided to turn off the seismometer altogether in order to save power. However, after the storm passed, the seismometer is collecting data again – though the mission expects the lander only has enough power for a few more weeks.
InSight Lander Mission End declaration by NASA
NASA has informed that they will declare the mission over when InSight misses two consecutive communication sessions with the spacecraft orbiting Mars, part of the Mars Relay Network – but only if the cause of the missed communication is the lander itself, said network manager Roy Gladden of JPL. After that, NASA’s Deep Space Network will listen for a time, just in case.
There will be no heroic measures to re-establish contact with InSight. While a mission-saving event – a strong gust of wind, say, that cleans the panels off – isn’t out of the question, it is considered unlikely.
