The InSight lander is losing its battle with Martian dust, and is now expected to reach the end of its science mission this summer, NASA has announced. The lander’s solar panels are now so dusty that they produce only 10 per cent of the 5,000 Watt-hours of power they did when the six-metre-wide robot first arrived on the planet.
The issue of dust build-up blocking solar panels has been known since the Viking missions of the 1970s. The Spirit and Opportunity rovers were spared InSight’s fate as their solar panels were cleaned at random intervals by gusts of wind. InSight – astationary platform located near the planet’s pole – hasn’t been so lucky. To preserve power, the InSight team has positioned the lander’s robot arm in a ‘retirement pose’ where it can still take images of the surrounding area without having to move.
The spacecraft will continue to use its seismometer to hunt for marsquakes. Since landing on 26 November 2018, it has detected more than 1,300 tremors, helping to build up an image of the inner structure of Mars and its crust, mantle and core. https://mars.nasa.gov/insight