InSight probe ‘retires’ after four years of work on Mars

NASA announced, this Wednesday (21), the “retirement” of its probe InSight, which has been investigating the interior of Mars for four years to reveal its secrets.

The end of the mission was expected, as the probe had been operating with very little energy for several weeks, due to the accumulation of Martian dust on its solar panels, a phenomenon that had been anticipated from the beginning by the American space agency.

“While saying goodbye to a spacecraft is always sad, the fascinating scientific work done by InSight is cause for celebration,” Thomas Zurbuchen, NASA associate administrator, said in a statement.

Equipped with a French-made ultrasensitive seismometer, InSight recorded more than 1,300 “Marsquakes” (Martian tremors), some caused by meteorite impacts. One, a year ago, was so powerful that it hurled blocks of ice onto the Martian surface.

The last signal received from InSight was on December 15th. Since then, NASA has made two unsuccessful attempts to establish contact with the device, which led the teams to conclude that the spacecraft’s batteries had reached the end.

The American space agency will continue to listen for a possible signal “just in case”, but this possibility is considered “very unlikely”, he explained in a statement.

Thanks to the analysis of seismic waves that cross the bowels of the red planet, the mission made it possible to better understand the inner layers of Mars.

Scientists were able to confirm that its core is liquid and determine the thickness of the Martian crust, which is less dense than previously thought.

The mission had already been extended due to a daring cleaning of the solar panels: the robot’s arm sank into the ground and gently hurled Martian earth in on itself on windy days.

The wind then took this land, dragging with it part of the dust accumulated in the panels.

The InSight probe arrived at Mars in November 2018.