The Marsquake-hunting mission will pause science for the time being.

A NASA spacecraft has safely emerged from a precautionary "safe mode" after an intense Martian dust storm. 

The solar-powered InSight lander, which is designed to study the interior of Mars, entered safe mode to save power on Jan. 7; it went back to "more normal operations" by Jan. 19, the mission said in a Twitter update. 

"Skies seem to be clearing overhead, so I'm out of safe mode and back to more normal operations," the tweet stated. "I'll wait to start doing more science until I know how much power I can expect to generate once the storm settles."

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which manages the mission, had expressed optimism earlier in the month that InSight would leave safe mode in about a week. While that prediction was just about right, reduced power will be a big factor to InSight's science production in the coming months.

InSight, which landed on the Red Planet in 2018, is already working on reduced power due to normal buildup of dust on the two solar powers. While engineers managed to take off the dust on one panel in 2021 using the lander's robotic arm, NASA has said such a procedure becomes more difficult as power diminishes. 

InSight removed the dust by drizzling a trickle of sand on the solar panel. While other NASA missions such as Opportunity and its twin rover Spirit have been lucky enough to get windy "cleanups" of dust on the solar panels, InSight hasn't been close enough to a dust devil to get that same benefit. 

Last year, NASA warned that reduced power on the mission could end InSight activities sometime in 2022. The planet reached its greatest orbital distance from the sun last year, and seasonal cycles of dust activity were also deemed a threat.

Quelle: SC

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Update: 7.02.2022

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InSight recovers from dust storm as lander’s power continues to wane

 

WASHINGTON — NASA’s InSight Mars lander has recovered from a safe mode caused by a dust storm in January, but the project’s leader says the mission is still likely to end within a year because of declining power levels.

In a presentation at a meeting of the Mars Exploration Program Analysis Group (MEPAG) Feb. 3, Bruce Banerdt, principal investigator for the InSight mission, said he expected the lander to resume normal operations Feb. 5 after going into a safe mode Jan. 7.

The safe mode was triggered by a regional dust storm that blocked sunlight for the solar-powered lander. That storm “expanded very rapidly,” he said, based on data from other spacecraft. “We did not really get any early warning on this.”

Dust storms are measured by a factor called the optical depth, or tau, with a higher value meaning less sunlight reaching the ground. For this storm, Banerdt said the storm never got higher than about two. “It’s still pretty dusty, but not so dusty that it really threatened the spacecraft,” he said. InSight could have handed dust storms with a tau of about four before the lack of sunlight available for power caused major concerns. By comparison, the Opportunity rover, whose mission ended after a dust storm in 2018, measured a tau of 10.8 before going offline.

The safe mode ended Jan. 18 and controllers have been gradually restoring the lander to normal operations, he said, with no sign of any lasting effects from the dust storm.

The mission, though, has been grappling with a gradual decline in the spacecraft’s power because of dust accumulating on its solar arrays. Unlike the Spirit and Opportunity rovers, whose arrays were regularly cleaned by atmospheric activity, dust has continued to accumulate on InSight’s arrays. At a meeting of MEPAG in June 2021, Banerdt projected that power levels would drop below that needed to keep the spacecraft alive in the spring of 2022.

That date has been pushed out slightly, but he said the long-term outlook for the lander still does not look promising. “Our current projections indicate that the energy will drop below that required to operate the payload in the May/June time frame and probably below survivability some time near the end of the year,” he said.

The mission is still working on ways to clean the arrays, including procedures where the lander’s robotic arm scoops up dirt and drops it just upwind of the arrays, so that grains bounce off the array and jar loose accumulated dust through a process called saltation. “It sounds like a crazy thing to do, but it actually works,” Banerdt said. The project has done it several times, and in each case it raised the output of the arrays by 1-3%.

Those efforts, though, may only delay the inevitable. “We don’t have a crystal ball, but our best estimate is that we probably won’t be getting very much science data past the summer,” he said. “The spacecraft is probably not going to last more than about a year.”

The decline in power has matched expectations, he noted, with more than enough power for InSight to get through its primary mission of one Martian year after its November 2018 landing. The mission also met its top-level science goals despite the declining power and the failure of a heat flow probe to burrow into the Martian surface.

InSight’s operations are funded through this year. Banerdt said that the mission has submitted a proposal as part of NASA’s ongoing senior review of planetary science missions for an extension in the event there’s a “cleaning event” that removes dust from the arrays and boosts the lander’s power. Such an event, though, is unlikely, he acknowledged. “We’re not betting our mortgage on it.”

Quelle: SN

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Update: 10.05.2022

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NASA’s InSight Records Monster Quake on Mars

Estimated to be magnitude 5, the quake is the biggest ever detected on another planet.

NASA’s InSight Mars lander has detected the largest quake ever observed on another planet: an estimated magnitude 5 temblor that occurred on May 4, 2022, the 1,222nd Martian day, or sol, of the mission. This adds to the catalog of more than 1,313 quakes InSight has detected since landing on Mars in November 2018. The largest previously recorded quake was an estimated magnitude 4.2detected Aug. 25, 2021.

InSight was sent to Mars with a highly sensitive seismometer, provided by France’s Centre National d’Études Spatiales (CNES), to study the deep interior of the planet. As seismic waves pass through or reflect off material in Mars’ crust, mantle, and core, they change in ways that seismologists can study to determine the depth and composition of these layers. What scientists learn about the structure of Mars can help them better understand the formation of all rocky worlds, including Earth and its Moon.

A magnitude 5 quake is a medium-size quake compared to those felt on Earth, but it’s close to the upper limit of what scientists hoped to see on Mars during InSight’s mission. The science team will need to study this new quake further before being able to provide details such as its location, the nature of its source, and what it might tell us about the interior of Mars.

 

This image shows InSight’s domed Wind and Thermal Shield, which covers its seismometer, called Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure, or SEIS.

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

“Since we set our seismometer down in December 2018, we’ve been waiting for ‘the big one,’” said Bruce Banerdt, InSight’s principal investigator at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, which leads the mission. “This quake is sure to provide a view into the planet like no other. Scientists will be analyzing this data to learn new things about Mars for years to come.”

The large quake comes as InSight is facing new challenges with its solar panels, which power the mission. As InSight’s location on Mars enters winter, there’s more dust in the air, reducing available sunlight. On May 7, 2022, the lander’s available energy fell just below the limit that triggers safe mode, where the spacecraft suspends all but the most essential functions. This reaction is designed to protect the lander and may occur again as available power slowly decreases.

After the lander completed its prime mission at the end of 2020, meeting its original science goals, NASA extended the mission through December 2022.

Quelle: NASA

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Update: 12.05.2022

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NASA to Provide Update on InSight Mars Lander

A thin layer of Martian dust can be seen coating InSight in this selfie taken by the Instrument Deployment Camera on the lander’s robotic arm. The image is made up of 14 shots captured March 15 and April 11, 2019, the 106th and 133rd Martian days, or sols, of the mission.

Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech

 

NASA will hold a media teleconference at 2 p.m. EDT (11 a.m. PDT) on Tuesday, May 17, to provide an update on the agency’s InSight Mars lander. NASA leadership and mission team members will highlight InSight’s science accomplishments, share details on the spacecraft’s power situation, and discuss its future.

 

Audio of the briefing, as well as supporting graphics, will livestream at:

 

https://www.nasa.gov/live

 

The teleconference participants will include:

 

• Lori Glaze, director of NASA’s Planetary Science Division at NASA Headquarters in Washington
• Bruce Banerdt, InSight principal investigator, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California
• Kathya Zamora Garcia, InSight deputy project manager, JPL

 

To participate in the call, media must RSVP no later than three hours prior to the start of the event to Rexana Vizza at: rexana.v.vizza@jpl.nasa.gov. Valid media credentials are required and the agency’s media accreditation policy is available online. Media and the public can submit questions on social media during the teleconference using #AskNASA.

 

InSight landed in the Elysium Planitia region of Mars in November 2018 with the goal of studying the planet’s deep interior for the first time, using seismic signals to learn more about the properties of the crust, mantle, and core. Answering these questions helps shed light on how all rocky worlds form, including Earth and its Moon.

 

After InSight met the goals of its two-year-long prime mission, NASA extended the mission until December 2022. However, due to dust accumulation on its solar panels, InSight’s electrical power production is dropping, and the mission is unlikely to continue operations for the duration of its current extended mission unless its solar panels are cleared by a passing “dust devil” in Mars’ atmosphere.

Quelle: NASA                                                                                                                                                          ----                                                                                                                                                                        Update: 18.05.2022                                                                                                                                           .                                                                                                                                                                          

NASA's Mars lander InSight has only a few months to live on the Red Planet

                       NASA's InSight Mars lander is seen covered in Martian dust in this image from April 24, 2022. The dust is starving the solar-powered probe. (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)                                                       

NASA's Marsquake-seeking lander is squeezing out as much science as possible amid dwindling power supplies, but it likely only has a few months left for its mission. 

The Mars lander InSight is battling a long-term accumulation of dust on its solar panels and is down to one-tenth of its available landing power of 5,000 watt-hours, officials said in a press conference Tuesday (May 17).

"When we landed, it was about an hour — 40 minutes or so — where you can run [the equivalent of] an electric oven," Kathya Zamora Garcia, InSight deputy project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, told reporters. Now, Garcia added, "we could probably run that approximately 10 minutes max."                                                     

But exactly when InSight closes off its instruments on Mars for good is a big unknown, as it depends on the weather, the spacecraft's performance and other factors difficult to quantify, JPL's principal investigator Bruce Banerdt told reporters.

"It's exceeded our expectations at just about every turn on Mars, and so it may actually last longer than that," Banerdt said.

InSight touched down on the Red Planet in November 2018 and made unprecedented measurements concerning seismic activity on Mars, following less-than-successful attempts by spacecraft such as Viking. Just weeks ago, InSight's biggest-ever quake on Mars was reported amid 1,300 others it has sensed since coming to Elysium Planitia.

The mission allowed scientists to precisely place limits on the thickness of the crust and the size of the core, Banerdt said, which he characterized as a crowning achievement of the mission.

"We just had a really fuzzy picture of what was going on inside Mars [before], and I think InSight's real contribution is now we can actually draw a quantitatively precise picture of the inside," he said.

But like many other solar-powered craft on Mars, InSight's limiting factor was dust choking off sunlight, which is the main source of power for the mission. NASA has been warning for months that the InSight Mars lander would likely to fail by mid-year 2022, even after granting InSight an extension for its continued science value.

Due to weight and power concerns, the lander did not carry a supplemental system to clean off dust, such as motors or brushes. Engineers did manage to remove a bit from a solar panel in 2021 after drizzling sand on the lander and letting the wind blow it across the panel to clear some dust. But absent a great gust of wind from a nearby dust devil, InSight was left battling sandy accumulation.

To preserve power as best as possible, the mission will be tasked this spring to put its arm in a "retirement pose", in an inverted V-shaped position to take views of the seismometer once it is no longer commanded to move from Earth. The seismometer will run at least intermittently for a while longer, but it and other instruments should be turned off by late summer.Banerdt emphasized, however, that the science team will remain busy for at least another six months on immediate mission tasks, even after InSight completes its data collection. "We're getting final data products, like our final Mars quake catalog and our final Mars models," he said.

The team will upload their last tranches of data to a publicly available archivethat strives to have science information available within three months of collection, Banerdt said. This information will remain available essentially forever, adding to the catalog of retired space mission data that could be revisited for future investigations. 

The archive will not only be useful for future Mars missions, but others that may be using seismic investigations or that assess interiors of rocky worlds. Banerdt, who said he has been working to get a seismometer on the Red Planet for most of his career, suggested Venus might be a natural next location (assuming said instrument could survive the intense heat). 

Officials also cited the Dragonfly mission to Saturn's moon Titan as a beneficiary of InSight research, as the landing craft will carry a seismometer. That life-hunting mission should launch in 2027, if all goes to plan.InSight exceeded its major mission goals despite facing issues with its "mole" heat-seeking probe, that was supposed to tunnel deep into the regolith to look at any heat trickling from the Martian interior.

In January 2021, NASA gave up numerous valiant attempts to get the German Aerospace Center (DLR)-built mole working, amid an extension review board warning that the mission was already running low on power. The problem came down to InSight encountering much sandier soil than found on the Red Planet before, which the mole wasn't designed to tackle (despite best efforts).

The mole ultimately only got a few inches beneath the surface, rather than the 10 feet (3 meters) its design called for, but Banerdt said the instrument was always seen as complementary (and not fully essential) to the mandate of Insight to assess Martian interior activity.

"Seismology tells us what the building blocks of the planet are today, and the [mole] was going to tell us something about the dynamics of it," Banerdt said. What was lost, he said, was being able to put some constraints on temperatures in the core, although some suggestions can come from the seismology.

Banerdt acknowledged that his next birthday, which coincides with InSight's mission selection date on Aug. 20, 2012, may be quite different in 2022 if the lander falls quiet by then. "This mission is really near and dear to my heart," he said.                                                                                                                                                

Quelle: SC

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Update: 23.06.2022

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InSight's Final Selfie

NASA’s InSight Gets a Few Extra Weeks of Mars Science

Quelle: NASA 

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Update: 28.08.2022

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NASA'S INSIGHT LANDER FINDS TROPICAL MARS IS DRY

Evidence for water ice exists at the poles of Mars and even at mid-latitudes, but new evidence suggests “tropical” Mars (near the equator) is dry. The find has implications for past habitability and future human missions to Mars.

Clouds drift over InSight's dome-covered seismometer, known as SEIS, on Mars. Readings of seismic waves have helped scientists understand what lies beneath the surface.
NASA / JPL-Caltech

Hardly any traces of the vanished oceans of Mars remain in the Red Planet's tropics. The velocity of seismic waves recorded by the seismometer in NASA's InSight lander reveal few traces of the subsurface ice that has been found at higher latitudes, says oceanographer Vashan Wright (University of California, San Diego). Wright led the study published August 9th in Geophysical Research Letters.

We now know ancient ocean and rivers sculpted the Martian landscape — and that some of this water remains in the form of kilometers-deep ice atop the poles. Water ice is not stable at lower latitudes, but in recent decades researchers have found some ice, which froze during colder epochs, preserved under the surface. Water that evaporated can also leave behind deposits of clays and soluble minerals on ancient rocks; the Osiris-Rex spacecraft discovered similar traces of past water on asteroid 101955 Bennu.

Hidden ices and minerals deposited by water can offer important insight into the history of Mars and the possibility that life might once have evolved on it. NASA is also searching for existing ice and water deposits to help supply future human expeditions to the Red Planet. Although ice is abundant at the poles, conditions there are too harsh for humans, so NASA is focusing on lower latitudes where ice may be below the surface.

Last year, the Mars Subsurface Water Ice Mapping (SWIM) project reported that shallow ice deposits are plentiful at high and mid latitudes. The team gathered indirect evidence using neutron spectroscopy, heat-flow measurements, geomorphic analysis, radar mapping, and radar composition analysis. The most definitive evidence came from recent impacts that exposed bright white areas of previously buried ice.

“We use the location of fresh ice-exposing impacts . . . to ground-truth our approach,” says Gareth Morgan (Planetary Science Institute, Washington), lead author of the report published a year ago in Nature Astronomy. Icy spots have been observed in craters as close as 39º to the equator, and a few potential signs of ice have been observed at slightly lower latitudes, says Morgan.

The landing of InSight November 26, 2018 in Elysium Planita, 4.5º north of the Martian equator, brought a new capability — the first seismometer to operate on the planet since the Viking landers attempted similar operations on Mars in 1976. The new instrument takes advantage of four decades of new technology, and Wright realized it could help in the search for subsurface ice.

Seismometers measure vibrations in the ground, whose speed depends on the materials they’re passing through. Wright's idea was to use the seismometer to detect ice, as well as minerals that ice might leave behind, in the rock. The area where InSight landed is dominated by two materials, loose sediments, in which seismic waves move slowly, and fractured basalts, which transmit the waves faster.

“One of the things we looked for was carbon dioxide acting a cement to glue the grains together,” says Wright. Carbon dioxide from the atmosphere dissolved in the ancient ocean, then was buried as an aqueous solution, where it reacted with surrounding grains to form calcite (a form of calcium carbonate). Calcite glued these sedimentary grains together, which now lets seismic waves travel faster through the material. The same effects could have occurred in the fractured basalt, which might also hold some ice.

Using the seismic wave data, Wright's group analyzed the structure of InSight’s landing site. They refined the results by running computer models of seismic wave propagation 10,000 times. While they did not directly detect ice, water, or cement, by comparing their models with the InSight data, they were able to show the maximum levels of ice, water, or cement that could be present — and they were low.

The group found no evidence of water or ice in the sedimentary layers, down to 300 meters (1,000 feet) beneath the lander. The cracks among the fractured basalts make up less than 40% of the volume, and those cracks are largely filled with air — they contain less than 20% ice and less than 2% calcite cement.

The failure to find evidence for ice did not surprise Morgan. “[It] doesn't really challenge our current thinking about the location . . . of accessible ice,” he says. “But it does demonstrate the importance of surface geophysical instruments to test the results of orbital and model-based analysis. It would be wonderful to place seismometers at higher latitudes on Mars.”

Quelle: Sky&Telescope