InSight, NASA's quake-detecting Mars project, officially concludes

The mission of the InSight lander has officially completed after producing significant findings about the deep innards of Mars. The stationary lander was on Mars for approximately 1,500 days. After the lander failed to reply to two communications from mission control at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, mission officials announced the program's termination on Wednesday.

The mission, which was abbreviated as "Interior Exploration utilizing Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport," came to a successful conclusion on November 26, 2018, more than four years after it had originally landed.

Thomas Zurbuchen, the associate administrator of NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington, said in a statement, "Saying goodbye to a spacecraft is always sad, but the fascinating science InSight conducted is a reason to celebrate. The seismic data collected by this Discovery Program mission alone provides enormous new insights not just into Mars, but also into other rocky planets, including Earth."


The mission of InSight, originally designed to last just two years, has been extended twice. However, a buildup of dust on the lander's solar panels led to a gradual loss of power.



Mars is a frigid desert where dust storms determine the weather. Throughout its stay on Mars, InSight endured dust storms and spinning dust devils. The intelligent mission crew and the wind on Mars helped periodically clean the solar panels.

Despite these obstacles, InSight saved energy to continue collecting scientific data from its location in the Elysium Planitia plain around the equator of Mars. Slowly, it turned off its equipment one by one while it listened for Marsquakes till the very end.

In April, one of the mission's last selfies revealed the red dust forming an impenetrable coating on InSight's solar panels.

FAQs:

1. Was InSight's mission a success?
   The equipment was designed to efficiently measure the planet's temperature and provide scientists with further information on Mars' interior thermal activity and geology. InSight never even came close to achieving this objective. NASA said on January 14 that it would no longer try to bury the heat probe.
2. What is the name of the earthquake on Mars?
   Earth has earthquakes, whereas Mars has 'marsquakes'.