NASA’s InSight robotic lander has been in a dangerous position for the last year. A thick pile of dust has been blocking its solar panels forcing its operators to pull the plug on all hardware, except one. That one hardware is still functional to save its precious energy.
However, technicians at NASA JPL have managed to pull off an ingenious hack to buy little more time for the dying lander, as per JPL’s press release. After failing a few times to brush off the dust from solar panels, NASA instructed InSight to scoop up and carefully drop sand upwind of its solar panel, allowing it to wipe the dust pile.
“We weren’t sure this would work, but we’re delighted that it did,” said Matt Golombek, InSight mission manager.
Another storm could make things difficult
However, InSight isn’t completely clear of the dust as yet. Since the Red Planet is traveling farther from the Sun in its orbit currently, NASA may still have to make some tough calls about which hardware to keep functional and which ones to shut down to save energy.
Still, the extra power gained from the cleared-off solar panel should be enough for the lander until Mars travels closer to the Sun in August, according to the press release.
In case there’s a dust storm or some other calamity that might cover the lander’s solar panel again, the space agency should be able to power other hardware at the point to keep the research going.
Perseverance completes 100 Sols on Mars
Recently, NASA’s other rover – Perseverance completed 100 Sols or Martian days on the planet. The rover and its tiny helicopter buddy Ingenuity made a touchdown on the Red Planet’s Jezero Crater on February 18. One Mars day or ‘sol’ is equal to 24 hours and 40 minutes on Earth, a little longer than the days we experience on Earth.
The Jazero crater was chosen for the landing because it is an ideal place for research. It is 45km-wide and is believed to have hosted a big lake and a river delta billions of years ago. The Ingenuity helicopter has also exceeded the space agency’s expectations by finishing 5 flights since its deployment.
