It looks like it’s soon to be lights out for the Mars InSight lander. In the two years that the lander has been studying the geophysics of Mars from its lonely post on Elysium Planitia, InSight’s twin solar arrays have been collecting dust, and now are so dirty that they’re only making about 500 watt-hours per sol, barely enough to run the science packages on the lander. And that’s likely to worsen as the Martian winter begins, which will put more dust in the sky and lower the angle of the Sun, reducing the sunlight that’s incident to the panels. Barring a “cleaning event” courtesy of a well-placed whirlwind, NASA plans to shut almost everything down on the lander other than the seismometer, which has already captured thousands of marsquakes, and the internal heaters needed to survive the cold Martian nights. They’re putting a brave face on it, emphasizing the continuing science and the mission’s accomplishments. But barely two years of science and a failed high-profile experiment aren’t quite what we’ve come to expect from NASA missions, especially one with an $800 million price tag.
Closer to home, it turns out there’s a reason sailing ships have always had human crews: to fix things that go wrong. That’s the lesson learned by the Mayflower Autonomous Ship as it attempted the Atlantic crossing from England to the States, when it had to divert for repairs recently. It’s not clear what the issue was, but it seems to have been a ..
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