NASA’s InSight lander loses power, enters retirement on Mars

There is a machine on Mars. The marsquake-detecting, photo-snapping InSight lander has now officially completed its mission and will now spend the rest of its life sitting on a flat plain on the Martian surface, as dust slowly accumulates on its solar panels and other instruments.

It has been known for a while that this was going to happen. Since the solar panels unfurled, the dust has been covering them. The mission was expected to run out of power this summer but good weather allowed it to stay on Mars for a few more months.

The time has expired. As it became clear that the lander wouldn't make it, NASA's first-person first-lander status updates became emotional. As a dust storm darkened the skies in October, the official account for the landers said it was staying calm. The team assured the millions of people who sent their names to the rover that they were together on Mars.

The social media team asked people to remember that there were other machines on Mars before delivering a final gut punch in the form of one last dusty photo from the lander.

Image: NASA Insight

NASA said in a press release that the last communication was made on December 15th. The agency will listen, but after the mission team was unable to contact the lander, they decided that it was functionally dead.

The mission to study the interior of Mars ended in failure. In November of the same year, the landers landed. More than 1000 marsquakes were detected by the seismometer. The marsquake that was detected earlier this year was the equivalent of a magnitude 5 earthquake. Data from the shaking is being used to get a better picture of the planet.

The seismometer was a huge success, but another instrument on the landers faced problems. InSight had a device that was meant to hit itself deep in the surface. The mole popped back out when the soil near the landing site wasn't as soft as the team anticipated.

NASA decided in April to keep the mission going until the end of the year, or at the very least until the lander ran out of power.

Bruce Banerdt, the mission's principal investigator, said in a press release that it was difficult to say goodbye. It has been well deserved.