‘My power is really low’: NASA set to lose contact with Mars Insight rover after four years | UK News

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This may be the last image sent back from NASA’s Mars Insight spacecraft.

After a four-year mission on the Red Planet, the robotic lander — famous for taking the first “selfie” ever taken on Mars — is being decommissioned.

Thick dust blown by the wind covered InSight’s solar panels, and NASA expects it to lose contact with the probe soon.

The US space agency posted the news on the rover’s Twitter page, saying, “My power is really low, so this may be the last image I can send back.

“Don’t worry about me, though: my time here has been productive and uneventful.

“If I can keep talking to my assignment team, I will — but I’m going to get signed here soon. Thanks for staying with me.”

NASA announced the £630m InSight project 10 years ago as a follow-up to the successful Curiosity rover.

The InSight lander’s goal was to discover how Mars formed, with the goal of giving scientists a better understanding of how rocky bodies like Earth formed.

Before that, the spacecraft had to successfully make the 300 million-mile journey to Mars before enduring “seven minutes of terror” to descend to the surface.

Only 40% of flights to the Red Planet have safely crossed the thin atmosphere.

Photo: Pic: NASA/JPL-Caltech.

A combination of a heat shield, parachute and reversing gear helped slow InSight from 13,000 mph to 5 mph in just six minutes to allow it to touch down on Elysium Planitia, a featureless plain north of the Curiosity rover site.

Once it fluttered, the rover rammed a temperature probe five meters into the surface to measure the heat flowing from the planet’s core.

Read more NASA’s Orion spacecraft returns to Earth after a successful mission to the Moon

Five months after the landing, InSight’s seismograph recorded a faint roar. NASA scientists concluded that it came from within the planet, and dubbed it a “Mars earthquake.”

One of InSight’s major accomplishments has been proving that the Red Planet is indeed seismically active, recording more than 1,300 bogs.

Image: NASA’s robotic lander, Insight. Pic: NASA/JPL-Caltech.

NASA said the recording started a new field of research in “Martian seismology,” which could help learn more about how rocky planets form.

He also measured the seismic waves generated by meteorite impacts, revealing the thickness of the planet’s outer crust, the size and density of the inner core, and the structure of the mantle that lies between them.

But there was also time for some fun. The rover is famous for taking the first-ever “selfie” on Mars, using a camera attached to its robotic arm to send a picture all the way back to Earth.

Photo: InSight takes a “selfie” on Mars using a camera on its robotic arm.

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) near Los Angeles will continue to listen for a signal from the rover, just in case.

Experts say hearing about InSight again is unlikely.

The stationary, three-legged probe made contact with Earth on December 15th.

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