Marslander InSight appears to have sent its last photo

It appears NASA’s Mars lander InSight has sent its last photo. The US space agency said in May that InSight would cease operation before the end of this year because it cannot generate enough energy from its solar panels.

NASA has via Twitter shared the last photo of the Mars lander. The organization remains in contact with InSight as long as it still has sufficient energy. It is not clear exactly when the Mars lander will fail.

Earlier this year NASA reported that InSight would probably fail before the end of this year, because the solar panels with which the Mars lander is equipped are increasingly covered with dust. In recent months, the amount of electricity generated has decreased significantly. In October, Insight helped search for the source of an earthquake, which turned out to be caused by a meteorite impact. NASA then expected that the Mars lander would be permanently decommissioned within six weeks.

InSight’s mission began in 2018. InSight was then sent to Mars for soil research. The planned mission was completed in 2020 and extended until 2022. InSight had detected a total of 1,318 Marsquakes by October 2022.

The probably last photo of Marslander InSight