he Insight lander will soon cease science operations.🧐
Previous solar-powered NASA Mars missions have been aided by whirlwinds in the past. Both the Spirit and Opportunity rovers, for example, had dust cleared off their solar panels, allowing them to operate for a little longer. This hasn't happened for InSight, and it continues to collect dust, leading to progressively less capacity for generating solar power.
"If just 25 percent of InSight’s panels were swept clean by the wind, the lander would gain about 1,000 watt-hours per sol — enough to continue collecting science," NASA wrote in."However, at the current rate power is declining, InSight’s non-seismic instruments will rarely be turned on after the end of May."
The spacecraft's robotic arm has been used to remove dust in the past, but the dust simply collects too quickly for the robotic arm to keep up without using up vital energy, according to NASA.Still, Insight actually outlived its original design lifetime of two years and produced a great number of readings in the process, meaning the mission has been a great success.
The team explained that the lander's robotic arm will now be put into a stowed position to help conserve energy for the seismometer for a little longer. Just before that happens, however, the team took one last selfie of Insight, showing the amount of red dust that has collected on its solar panels since it reached the Red Planet. One day, humans may reach its current location and retrieve the historic spacecraft for future generations to admire.
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