Landmark Mars robot will run out of power, ending historic mission

The dust on Mars is relentless.

The lives of NASA robots were ended by blanketing their solar panels. Dust is diminishing the power of the space agency's InSight lander, the first robot sent to reveal the ongoings in Mars' interior. The lander's scientific mission will end sometime during the later part of summer, according to NASA. The agency expects to end the mission by the end of the year.

At the start of its mission in November, the lander produced about one-tenth of its power.

Bruce Banerdt, InSight's principal investigator at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said at a press briefing on Tuesday that InSight is probably coming to the end of its scientific life.

Even though InSight's power dropped, it still collected new observations. A magnitude 5 marsquake was detected by the robot in early May, it was the strongest quake detected on Mars and the strongest temblor ever observed on another planet.

Mark Panning, a planetary scientist, said that Mars is not as active as Earth.

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Dust collected on an InSight lander's solar panel. Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech

Engineers at InSight plan to cut operating time in a few weeks as power levels fall. They might only run the lander for a short period of time. InSight uses as much energy as an electric oven when it is online.

NASA emphasized that the mission to probe Mars' interior was a success. Over 1,300 temblors were detected by the robot. Daily weather reports were collected. It helped researchers map Mars' inner geology by detecting the red planet's large, liquid core.

The failure to deploy the mole was a letdown, as it was an instrument that was supposed to collect unprecedented information about the planet's internal temperature. The mole ran into something. It failed to bore more than an inch down.

The biggest disappointment of the mission was not being able to get the heat flow measurement.

It is most likely that InSight is in its last days. Dust devils are common on Mars, so it is possible that they may clean off the solar panels. This could extend the mission. That is not expected to happen.

Mars robotic missions come to an end. They beam back information about a desert world we hope to visit one day, when a next generation megarocket launches us there.