It has been known for a while that NASA's InSight Lander would be coming to an end after four years of service. It looks like its final communication with Earth has happened.
The ability of the landers to maintain power has been affected by a build up of dust on the solar panels.
An image from the red planet is likely to be InSight's last one before it shuts down.
InSight said that this may be the last image he can send. My time here has been productive and peaceful. I will sign off here if I can keep talking to my team. I would like to thank you for being with me.
My power’s really low, so this may be the last image I can send. Don’t worry about me though: my time here has been both productive and serene. If I can keep talking to my mission team, I will – but I’ll be signing off here soon. Thanks for staying with me. pic.twitter.com/wkYKww15kQ
— NASA InSight (@NASAInSight) December 19, 2022
I've been lucky enough to live on two planets. My family was delighted when I arrived at the second one four years ago. I would like to thank my team for sending me on this adventure. I hope I have made you proud.
If the cause of the missed communication is the lander, NASA will officially end the mission. The Deep Space Network will keep listening for a while just in case.
After launching from a base in California, InSight reached Mars six months later.
Unlike other Mars rovers, InSight has no wheels and stayed at the same location for the entire mission.
NASA said that the science activities were designed to be more like a marathon than a sprint.
Over the last four years, the landers data has yielded details about Mars' interior layers, its liquid core, the surprisingly variable remnants beneath the surface of its mostly extinct magnetic field, and lots of earthquake activity.
One of the legacies of the robot is that it proves the technique of seismology for planetary science.
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