M
Mike Wehner
Guest
Of all the missions that NASA has sent to Mars over the past decade, the InSight lander might be the one that has caused the most problems. The lander successfully touched down on Mars a couple of years back and it quickly became clear that something wasn't working as intended when it deployed its self-hammering "mole" probe. The InSight team spent months and months trying to get it to work before eventually giving up. At the same time, its seismic sensors have returned data, but a good chunk of that data is believed to have been created by the brisk wind moving over the surface and not actual "Marsquakes."
Still, despite these shortcomings, NASA has been able to collect a lot of valuable data from InSight, and it's far from a failure. In fact, it performed well enough that NASA granted the two-year primary mission (which ended in late 2020) a two-year extension. Unfortunately, the probe is now in an emergency hibernation mode due to the dust that is covering its solar panels. If NASA doesn't get lucky, the lander may face the same fate as the Opportunity rover, and that's not good.
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NASA’s Mars InSight lander may be in deep trouble originally appeared on BGR.com on Wed, 14 Apr 2021 at 18:18:47 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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