NASA ends Mars lander InSight mission after failed communications attempts

The American space agency is permanently retiring the Mars lander InSight, because contact seems to be over. The end of the mission comes more than four years after the lander successfully arrived on the red planet.

Mission controllers from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory are there despite multiple attempts no longer successful to make contact with the lander. This led to the conclusion that the spacecraft’s batteries are empty and can no longer supply energy. This state that InSight is most likely in is also referred to by the engineers as ‘dead bus’. The mission team has previously moved the robotic arm into a resting position.

NASA had previously indicated that it would consider the mission ended if two communication attempts were unsuccessful. A signal is still being listened to, but NASA considers it unlikely that a sign of life will be detected. There was contact for the last time on December 15.

The space agency recently published a photo that InSight took. It was already assumed that that photo would be the last. This has to do with the amount of dust that has accumulated on the solar panels. This amount has continued to increase in recent months and as a result the amount of electricity that could still be generated has decreased significantly. A final period of six weeks was already assumed at the end of October.

InSight’s mission began when the lander arrived on Mars in November 2018. A month later, Insight took its first full-length selfie. The planned mission was completed in 2020 and extended until 2022. InSight was sent to Mars for soil research. The lander was launched primarily to answer questions about the structure and energetics of the interior of the planet Mars. To find out more, the lander measured, among other things, the thickness of the crust, the size and the density of the core. Earlier this year, Insight measured the largest earthquake on Mars to date and a meteorite impact was also discovered.

The last selfie InSight took, taken on April 24. Visible is the significant amount of dust covering the lander.