Leonard David's INSIDE OUTER SPACE

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona

The Mars-circling NASA spacecraft – the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) – has used its super-powerful High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera system to catch a view of NASA’s now retired InSight Mars lander.

Built by Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Denver, InSight landed back in November 2018, carrying out duties to reveal details about the Red Planet’s Marsquakes, and plumbing the depths of Mars to acquire crust, mantle, and core data.

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona

The new imagery — taken on October 23^rd — show that the Mars lander’s solar panels have acquired the same reddish-brown hue as the rest of the planet, reports Andrew Good in the Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s (JPL) media department.

Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.
Credit: NASA

Dusty situation

Over the four years that the spacecraft collected science, engineers at NASA’s JPL, which led the mission, used images from InSight’s cameras and MRO’s HiRISE “to estimate how much dust was settling on the stationary lander’s solar panels, since dust affected its ability to generate power,” Good added.

Launched in August of 2005, the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) that’s onboard the MRO, is operated by the University of Arizona in Tucson. HiRISE was built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. in Boulder, Colorado.

Return to life?

NASA retired InSight in December 2022. The lander ran out of power and stopped communicating with Earth during an extended mission. “But engineers continued listening for radio signals from the lander in case wind cleared enough dust from the spacecraft’s solar panels for its batteries to recharge,” Good added.

InSight’s first full selfie on Mars, taken on April 24, 2022.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

But since no communications from the lander have been detected over the past two years, NASA is stopping its listening for InSight at the end of this year.

The solar arrays on NASA’s InSight lander are deployed in this test inside a clean room at Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver. The image was taken on April 30, 2015.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Lockheed Martin Space