NASA Ends Marslander InSight Mission After Failed Communication Attempts – IT Professional – News

The US space agency is permanently withdrawing the InSight Mars lander, because contact appears to have ended. The mission ends more than four years after the lander successfully arrives at the red planet.

Mission controllers from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory are here despite numerous attempts he no longer succeeded to contact the lander. This led to the conclusion that the spacecraft’s batteries are dead and can no longer provide energy. This state that InSight is most likely to be in is also referred to by engineers as “dead bus”. The mission team will soon bring the robotic arm to its resting position.

NASA had previously indicated that it would consider the mission terminated if two communication attempts failed. A signal is still being listened to, but NASA thinks it unlikely that any signs of life will be received. On 15 December there was one last contact.

The space agency recently released another one photo taken by InSight. It was already thought that that photo would be the last. This has to do with the amount of dust that has settled on the solar panels. That amount has continued to increase in recent months, and as a result, the amount of electricity that could still be generated has significantly decreased. At the end of October, a final term of six weeks was already assumed.

From InSight’s mission when the lander started in November 2018 arrived on Mars. A month later, Insight made its own first full selfie. The planned mission was completed in 2020 and extended through 2022. InSight was sent to Mars for ground research. The lander was launched primarily to answer questions about the structure and energy of the interior of the planet Mars. To find out more, the lander measured crustal thickness, core size and density, among other things. Earlier this year Insight measured the largest earthquake ever recorded on Mars until now and has become discovered the impact of a meteorite.