InSight has experienced power issues due to dust buildup on the solar panels.
REPUBLIC.CO.ID, WASHINGTON — The United States Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) InSight lander is struggling to survive in Mars silent now. NASA lost contact with the Mars InSight lander on Sunday (12/18/2022) after the spacecraft failed to respond to communications from its enforcement team.
InSight, which has been studying earthquakes on Mars since 2018, was having power problems due to a buildup of dust on the solar panels.
“The persistent force has been declining for months, as expected, and it is assumed that InSight may have reached its end of operations,” he wrote. NASA in the Monday (12/19/2022) update, reported by SpaceWednesday (21/12/2022).
The mission last contacted the spacecraft on December 15, 2022. NASA reports it lost contact with InSight a day after sharing what may be the last photograph of the Martian lander.
The latest InSight photo shows a view showing the Martian horizon with seismometer probes, robotic arms and other equipment visible. NASA’s JET Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, oversees the mission.
NASA launched its InSight lander to Mars in May 2018 on a two-year mission to study the interior of the Red Planet with seismometers and thermal probes. The hot probe, which was supposed to drill several meters below the surface of Mars, never reached the intended depth. However, the seismometer amazed scientists with more than 1,300 earthquake readings.
The mission worth US$814 million (US) or about Rp 12.6 trillion has finally been extended until December 2022. Scientists announced last week that InSight had detected its strongest earthquake yet.
In May, NASA announced that InSight would be ending soon due to the reduced amount of power being generated by the dust-coated solar arrays at the time. In November, the spacecraft generated just 20 percent of the power it had when it landed on Mars in November 2018.
“The mission will continue to try to contact InSight,” NASA added in an update on Monday (12/19/2022).
