Last Update: December 23, 2022, 12:29 pm IST
Insight landed on Mars in late November 2018.
Four years after reaching Mars, NASA has retired its Mars InSight lander, the first robotic probe specifically designed to study the deep interior of the distant world.
NASA has formally retired its Mars InSight lander, specially designed to study the deep interior of the distant world, four years after reaching the Red Planet’s surface, the US space agency announced on Wednesday. Gaya’s first robotic probe.
Mission controllers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) near Los Angeles determined that the mission was over when two consecutive attempts to reestablish radio contact with the lander failed, indicating that InSight’s mission was over. The solar powered battery had run out of energy.
NASA predicted in late October that the spacecraft would reach the end of its operational life in a matter of weeks due to an increasingly heavy accumulation of dust on its solar panels, which would reduce its ability to recharge its batteries.
NASA said JPL engineers will continue to listen for signals from the lander, but are unlikely to hear again from InSight. The three-legged stationary probe last communicated with Earth on 15 December.
InSight landed on Mars in late November 2018 carrying instruments designed to detect planetary seismic rumblings, which had not been measured anywhere except on Earth, and its original two-year mission was later extended to four. was extended.
From its location in a vast and relatively flat plain called Elysium Planitia, just north of the planet’s equator, the lander has helped scientists gain a new understanding of Mars’ internal structure.
The researchers said InSight’s data revealed the thickness of the planet’s outer crust, the size and density of its inner core, and the composition of the mantle in the middle.
One of InSight’s major achievements was to establish that the Red Planet is, in fact, seismically active, recording more than 1,300 earthquakes. It also measured seismic waves generated by the meteorite impact.
“The seismic data from this Discovery Program mission alone provides tremendous insight into not only Mars but other rocky bodies, including Earth,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate.
One such effect was found a year ago when boulder-sized chunks of water ice close to Mars’ equator were surprisingly shut down.
Even after InSight is retired, NASA’s science rover Perseverance, the most recent robotic visitor to the Red Planet, continues to produce a collection of Martian mineral samples for future analysis on Earth.
This week, Perseverance deposited the first of 10 sample tubes, directed to leave it at a surface collection site on Mars as a backup cache in case the primary supplies stored in the rover’s belly for some reason fail a recovery spacecraft. May not be moved as planned in the future, NASA said.
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(This story has not been edited by News18 staff and is published from a syndicated news agency feed)