United States: NASA’s InSight (Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport) Lander has announced that it is preparing to sign off because of low power.
“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,” InSight stated on Twitter to inform the conclusion of its mission.
The lander has sent what may be its last image of the Red Planet before signing off the mission.
Earlier, NASA stated that the agency is preparing to say ‘farewell’ to InSight, whose end is expected soon.
“The spacecraft’s power generation continues to decline as windblown dust on its solar panels thickens,” Nasa wrote in an update on November. “The end is expected to come in the next few weeks,” the organization added.
Ever since the lander landed on Mars on November 26, 2018, InSight has captured several spectacular images of the Red Planet, shedding light on the mysteries of its interior.
According to NASA, since its activation, the robotic geologist has measured over 1,300 seismic events, and more than 50 of them had clear enough signals for the team to derive information about their location on Mars.
Nasa will not declare the end of the mission until InSight misses two check-ins with the spacecraft orbiting Mars that relays its information back to Earth.