InSight Mission to Mars

[Carole]

Can't they send then up with "wind screen wipers" for the solar panels?

[Rick]

Spirit and Opportunity both got a little help from dust devils, but Insight doesn't seem to have been quite so lucky. It's a known problem, so I guess they've not figured out a way to do the job without adding unacceptable weight or complexity to the craft.

[Carole]

Seems such a waste of a mission to lose it for the sake of not being able to clear the dust off the solar panels.

Carole 

[Rick]

Other things will be failing, too. The environment there is not kind to landers. Sooner or later one failure or another gets past the point of recovery. I think the InSight folks were hoping they'd get about as many dust devils cleaning the panels as Opportunity got, but they weren't as lucky...

[Rick]

NASA's thermal mole reveals active mantle plume on Mars

Researchers have discovered a driver for volcanic activity on Mars, a red planet once thought to have no active seismic geology.

Using data from NASA's InSight rover, which first landed on the fourth planet from the Sun in 2018, planetary scientists from the University of Arizona's Lunar and Planetary Laboratory have deduced an active mantle plume, the same type of giant pillar of hot molten rock which drives volcanic activity and earthquakes on Earth by pushing hot magma from the mantle to nearer the surface crust.

More: https://www.theregister.com/2022/12/05/nasas_thermal_mole_reveals_active/

[Rick]

NASA's Mars InSight uploads its (probably) final image, shares it in a tweet

In early November, NASA warned that the mission had entered its final weeks.

On Tuesday, US time, the lander confirmed it's not long for the world it inhabits.

At least NASA didn't drop the news on Christmas.

More: https://www.theregister.com/2022/12/20/nasa_mars_insight_farwell_tweet/

[Rick]

'My power's really low': Nasa's Insight Mars lander prepares to sign off from the Red Planet

Nasa's InSight lander has delivered what could be its final message from Mars, where it has been on a history-making mission to reveal the secrets of the Red Planet's interior.

In November the space agency warned the lander's time may becoming to an end as dust continued to thicken and choke out the InSight's power.

"The spacecraft's power generation continues to decline as windblown dust on its solar panels thickens," Nasa wrote in an update on 2 November. "The end is expected to come in the next few weeks."

More: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2022/dec/20/my-powers-really-low-nasas-insight-mars-rover-signs-off-from-the-red-planet