InSight Mars lander has only 'few weeks' of power left
- Reference: 1667377569
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2022/11/02/insight_mars_nasa_shutdown/
- Source link:
NASA announced the stationary Martian science lab's [1]unfortunate end on Tuesday, saying dust storms that have gradually covered the craft's solar panels over its three years on the Martian surface, capped off by a [2]dusting earlier this year that left the spacecraft with little power to carry out its objectives.
InSight, short for Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transportation, landed on Mars in November 2018 on a mission to study the Red Planet's subsurface soil and seismic activity. InSight has nearly doubled its original mission duration of 728 days, and in that time has recorded over 1,300 Marsquakes, NASA said.
A dust-covered selfie from the Mars InSight lander, taken April 24
Insight is now down to [3]a single tool – its seismometer – which InSight mission science and instrument operations leader at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory Liz Barrett said the team is still gathering data from.
"We're pushing it to the very end," Barrett said. "There will be no heroic measures to re-establish contact with InSight. "While a mission-saving event – a strong gust of wind, say, that cleans the panels off – isn't out of the question, it is considered unlikely."
The final countdown
InSight may have encountered its share of [4]problems during its mission, but has still gathered digital tons of Martian dirt data since 2018.
One such piece of info that's already been analyzed was the [5]recently reported Christmas Eve 2021 Marsquake that was determined to actually be the result of a meteoroid impact with the red planet. To reach that conclusion, NASA paired recordings from InSight with observations made by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter that detected a previously unseen, and likely new, crater.
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Aside from that discovery, countless details remain to be filed away and made accessible to researchers from around the world about things like Mars' interior layers, its core and subterranean remnants of the Red Planet's [7]once much larger magnetic field , NASA said.
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JPL's Sue Smrekar, InSight's deputy principal investigator, said that InSight's data will be made available to researchers through NASA's Planetary Data System and stored in an archive operated by the Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology - the first such non-Earth data to be filed with the group.
Smrekar said InSight's data is voluminous enough to yield results "for decades."
The InSight lander shortly after arriving on Mars, taken on December 6, 2018
Once InSight misses two consecutive check-ins with orbiting Mars Relay Network satellites the mission will be declared over, handing the task of monitoring for signs of life from InSight off to NASA's Deep Space Network, which will keep listening for a while just in case the lander is revived.
Maybe solar on Mars isn't the best idea?
While it may not be the best time to mention it, what with InSight's impending death, it's worth pointing out that solar-power may simply not be the best choice for a long-term space mission, and there's ready evidence for that conclusion.
"Weather on Mars is not rain and snow; weather on Mars is dust and wind," said JPL's Bruce Bandert, principle InSight investigator.
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Dust doesn't melt, meaning it's up to a chance breeze to bring a lander back to life. Additionally, the Sun's strength on Mars is only [11]about 44 percent as strong as it is on Earth, meaning there's a lot less solar energy getting to panels even when they're clean.
And while InSight still exceeded its planned duration (which are always conservative estimates), it's still nothing compared to the duration of the nuclear-powered Curiosity rover mission, which NASA planned to operate for two years when it landed on the Red Planet in 2012. NASA quickly extended Curiosity's mission duration to "indefinite," and believes it [12]may have 55 years of energy at its disposal .
Think you'll see a solar panel on that rover? Nope - it's [13]operating entirely on electricity generated by the radioactive decay of a 10.6 lb (4.8kg) chunk of plutonium dioxide.
[14]Origins of mysterious marsquake settled: It was a meteoroid what done it
[15]NASA: Mars rocks won't make it back to Earth until 2033
[16]Mars helicopter to take a breather, recharge batteries
[17]NASA ignores InSight's battery woes in pursuit of data
NASA has used similar power systems for other craft, like the Apollo Moon missions, the Viking Mars missions and others, and said that the system is safe enough to not be a health hazard "unless broken into very fine pieces or vaporized and then inhaled or swallowed." Even then, the expected radiation dose would be negligible, NASA said.
Expect that dose to be even lower by the time a human astronaut could take a trip out to visit Curiosity, which could easily still be wheeling about if humans make it to the red planet in the 2030s.
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A visit to solar-powered InSight, on the other hand, would be a memorial trip to talk about what could have gone differently if only the lander was equipped with a more reliable power source. ®
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[1] https://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/nasa-prepares-to-say-farewell-to-insight-spacecraft
[2] https://www.theregister.com/2022/02/10/dusty_insight/
[3] https://www.theregister.com/2021/06/28/insight_dust/
[4] https://www.theregister.com/2022/05/18/insight_mars_nasa/
[5] https://www.theregister.com/2022/10/28/marsquake_theory/
[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/science&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2Y2JN0cPOCvirhYSCvWGEKgAAAM4&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2022/10/11/mars_climate_microbes/
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[11] https://www.nasa.gov/audience/foreducators/9-12/features/F_How_Far_How_Faint.html#:~:text=Mars%20is%20at%20a%20distance,of%20Mars%20as%20on%20Earth!
[12] https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna50087396
[13] https://mars.nasa.gov/msl/spacecraft/rover/power/
[14] https://www.theregister.com/2022/10/28/marsquake_theory/
[15] https://www.theregister.com/2022/07/28/nasa_mars_rock/
[16] https://www.theregister.com/2022/07/14/ingenuity_grounded/
[17] https://www.theregister.com/2022/06/22/nasa_to_burn_through_the/
[18] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/science&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33Y2JN0cPOCvirhYSCvWGEKgAAAM4&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[19] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: Use inclined solar panels
Or adjustable angle - tilt to vertical to drop the dust off, then back to horizontal for optimum collection. Could even shake them while vertical.
Additional complexity? Maybe. But would it really be much more than the deployment mechanism?
Re: Use inclined solar panels
Static says no.
Even here on Earth I sometimes have issues with static collecting atmospheric dust on the solar panels. No amount of tipping or vibrating will shift it. I use a hose to rinse off the dust when necessary (and sometimes a sponge on a stick for bird poop ... hardly a problem on Mars).
Re: Use inclined solar panels
What's needed is for a Martian to pop out with a bucket and sponge, give it a quick rub down and demand 5 Martian dollars.
Re: Use inclined solar panels
Which is why we need manned missions to Mars, having somebody up there with a broom and a chamois leather to clean the solar panels would be very useful, they could even grow some spuds if they're not too busy.
Re: Use inclined solar panels
Could solar panels have a coating that could be electrostatically charged & then reversed, to charge and then repel the dust?
Re: Use inclined solar panels
Working with HV equipment in a vacuum that needs to be super clean I can say that the experiments have been done and have been less than successful. Once particles like that stick it's REALLY hard to persuade them to leave again. Your repelling charge might just shake them loose a little bit, only for them to then get attracted back to your surface at even higher charge levels
Re: Use inclined solar panels
Thank you for this. My inner arm chair commentard engineer also jumped straight to 'turn them over & shake' or 'something clever involving electrostatic'. Real world me knows far brighter minds will have thought of anything a commentard can come up with decades ago. Still, it's good to read the confirmation.
Cheers ->
Re: Use inclined solar panels
Agreed.
Re: Use inclined solar panels
A shaking or wobbling panel will need a flexible connector. Flexible connectors do not fare well in sub-zero conditions.
Wouldn't work anyway, the dust is highly charged and a couple of orders of magnitude finer than Earth dust - Consider Johnson's Baby Powder, pretty finely ground - Mars dust is much finer and will ingress into any flexible joints.
Re: Use inclined solar panels
Stick a Dualsense controller under it and shake the dust off.
Re: Use inclined solar panels
How about some kind of windshield wiper with a light brush on it?
Re: Use inclined solar panels
Complicated, heavy, can damage the panels and probably not nearly as effective as you'd think (try brushing dust off of a statically charged balloon, you'll probably just end up adding more).
Re: Use inclined solar panels
The only system I could think of that might work is to have a transparent belt running over and under the panel with all the cleaning bits underneath but I doubt if the added complexity would be worth it. Also in the highly probable event of crud getting between the panel and the belt, everything would get scratched up a treat.
Re: Use inclined solar panels
You could have these upside-down and dust would still cling to them.
Re: Use inclined solar panels
A simple robot arm with an air blower on the end. Only needs a swivel mounting to swing round and a single elbow to wipe up and down, so should be easy compared to the arms already out there.
Re: Use inclined solar panels
..or a simple windscreen wiper type arrangement.
or a slight incline and a vibration function maybe?
Different ending?
"A visit to solar-powered InSight, on the other hand, would be a memorial trip to talk about what could have gone differently if only the lander was equipped with a more reliable power source."
A visit to solar-powered InSight, on the other hand, could be a maintenance trip, armed with a can of compressed air and a datavac.
Re: Different ending?
If Musk gets to Mars he will make a lot of wind there... (could help, eh?)
Re: Different ending?
We don't need Musk; just a feather duster. Or a nice rain shower...
Re: Different ending?
Yeah, NASA's mistake was sending the lander to Mars and not Britain...
Get the helicopter from the other rover to fly above it make a vortex top clear the dust. Anyway, it should have been equipped with some sort of Martian air blower.
As a thought....
Why not have a clear roll of film over the panel, when dusty collection rolls can spool the surface and attempt (or just leave the dust rolled up) to extend the life of the panels. On the uptake spool some form of wipers could remove dust along with say either a vacuum or blower to remove the caught dust.
Yes, I will admit there's a weight cost to say having these rolls of film but it at least would extend the life by a reasonable amount.
Use inclined solar panels
If the solar panels were inclined at 60 degrees to the horizontal then the dust would fall off and the solar panels could work for many years. This would require larger panels with a weight penalty but the longer duration would make that worthwhile.