NASA has awarded a contract to Lockheed Martin Space of Littleton, Colorado, to build the Mars Ascent Vehicle (MAV), a small, lightweight rocket to launch rock, sediment, and atmospheric samples from the surface of the Red Planet. The award brings NASA a step closer to the first robotic round-trip to bring samples safely to Earth through the Mars Sample Return Program.

NASA’s InSight Enters Safe Mode During Regional Mars Dust Storm

The lander has taken measures to conserve energy; engineers aim to return to normal operations next week.

NASA’s InSight lander is stable and sending health data from Mars to Earth after going into safe mode Friday, Jan. 7, following a large, regional dust storm that reduced the sunlight reaching its solar panels. In safe mode, a spacecraft suspends all but its essential functions.

The mission’s team reestablished contact with InSight Jan. 10, finding that its power was holding steady and, while low, was unlikely to be draining the lander’s batteries. Drained batteries are believed to have caused the end of NASA’s Opportunity rover during an epic series of dust storms that blanketed the Red Planet in 2018.

Even before this recent dust storm, dust had been accumulating on InSight’s solar panels, reducing the lander’s power supply. Using a scoop on the lander’s robotic arm, InSight’s team came up with an innovative way to reduce the dust on one panel, and gained several boosts of energy during 2021, but these activities become increasingly difficult as available energy decreases.

Dust storms can affect solar panels in two ways: Dust reduces sunlight filtering through the atmosphere, and it can also accumulate on the panels. Whether this storm will leave an additional layer of dust on the solar panels remains to be determined.

The current dust storm was first detected by the Mars Color Imager (MARCI) camera aboard NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, which creates daily color maps of the entire planet. Those maps allow scientists to monitor dust storms and can serve as an early warning system for spacecraft on the Martian surface. InSight’s team received data indicating the regional storm is waning.

The whirlwinds and gusts of dust storms have helped to clear solar panels over time, as with the Spirit and Opportunity Mars rover missions. While InSight’s weather sensors have detected many passing whirlwinds, none have cleared any dust.

InSight’s engineers are hopeful they will be able to command the lander to exit safe mode next week. This will allow more flexibility in operating the lander, as communication, which requires a relatively large amount of energy, is limited in safe mode to conserve battery charge.

InSight landed on Mars on Nov. 26, 2018, to study the inner structure of the planet, including its crust, mantle and core. The spacecraft achieved its science objectives before its prime mission ended a year ago. NASA then extended the mission for up to two years, to December 2022, based on the recommendation of an independent review panel composed of experts with backgrounds in science, operations and mission management.

Doug, did you mean to say "sharp pitchover maneuver shortly after launch"?

(doesn't the launch need to be close to vertical?).

so could it still be accepted as a map for comet Halley, until the thing comes back and we preform a good flyby

your missing 46P

so we could do some SFS dems (once we kill the albedo variation)?

where do i find the triton images though, and can gimp open that format, i use GIMP not PS

this is definitely a crater

Judging from the accuracy of the daily drives they have autonomous drives and/or the relay down pat.

These 'containers' are associated with the mast stowage prior to landing ( i think ...)

The timing between frames is roughly: 33 sec -- 84 sec -- 33 sec -- 84 secs -- etc.

Thought they would have used the laser by now.

I find it hard to believe that with storage prices as low as they are, this site can't afford to store reasonably-sized images.

forums are not eternal and forum policies change even more frequently.

I think they go to the days when many people were on Dialup.

I don't know where they get their data,