Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

CTOnews.com, December 22 / PRNewswire-FirstCall-Asianet /-- NASA announced on the 21st that the mission of the unmanned Mars probe InSight has officially ended after more than four years of scientific exploration of Mars.

NASA said in a statement that the task force did not respond to two consecutive attempts to contact Insight, which concluded that its solar cells had been exhausted. NASA had previously decided that if the two contact insights were unsuccessful, it would declare its mission over.

NASA will continue to listen to signals from Insight, just in case, but there is little hope, the communique said. Insight last communicated with Earth on December 15.

NASA Insight posted on the 20th: "my battery is really low, so this may be the last photo I can send. But don't worry about me: my time here is productive and peaceful. If I can continue to talk to my mission team, I will continue, but my Mars mission will be over soon. Thank you for your company."

CTOnews.com learned that Insight, which cost $814 million, was launched in May 2018 and landed on Mars six months later, on the first human mission to explore the "innermost" mysteries of Mars. The full name of the Insight mission, "Internal exploration through seismic survey, geodesy and heat conduction", is the first mission to study the interior of Mars and an important part of the unmanned Mars exploration project in the United States. it is designed for two years. Through Insight, scientists hope to understand the size, composition and physical state of the Martian core, geological structure, as well as Martian internal temperature, seismic activity and so on. The aim is to try to answer one of the most basic questions in the scientific community: how planets are formed.

Insight was a successful mission, and its data told scientists that the Martian crust, at least at its near equatorial landing site, consists of two different layers: a top layer about 10 kilometers thick and a deep layer about 40 kilometers thick. In addition, Insight found that the Martian core is much larger than scientists expected, which also means that the core contains more lightweight elements than scientists think, especially more sulfur, perhaps as much as 15% to 20%.

"Insight is an amazing spacecraft," said Banerdt, a planetary scientist at NASA's California Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and lead investigator of the Insight mission. It did everything we asked it to do, and even more. It has won its retirement, and I like to think of it as retirement rather than death. After stopping talking to us, Insight will sit on Mars and enjoy the Martian sunset for a while. "

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