InSight teams push for more science in landers final months, Curiosity continues trek around Gale Crater

Date:
Sat, 25 Jun 2022 16:42:33 +0000

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In May 2022, members of NASAs InSight Mars lander team announced that power levels on The post InSight teams push for more science in landers final months, Curiosity continues trek around Gale Crater appeared first on NASASpaceFlight.com .

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In May 2022, members of NASAs InSight Mars lander team announced that power levels on the lander were diminishing and that they expected the lander to become inoperative by December 2022. However, I nSights teams want to push
the lander to do as much as possible in its final months and have chosen to operate the landers seismometer for longer than previously planned.

Meanwhile, NASAs Curiosity rover, closing in on its 10-year landing anniversary on Mars , continues to drive around Gale Crater and investigate interesting rock and surface formations providing scientists with hints to what Mars ancient past may have looked like.



InSight teams push for more science

On May 17, 2022, team members of NASAs InSight Mars lander announced that the mission, which started with a launch from Vandenburg Space Force Base in May 2018, would close in late 2022 as power levels on the lander diminished.

The original plan for InSights final months was to slowly retire specific instruments and science operations as its power levels dropped lower and
lower each day. The landers arm was moved to its retirement position in late May, with instruments slowly being shut off as the weeks went on.

However, in late June, teams revised their plans for InSights final months to maximize the science they can get out of the lander. Initially, teams had planned to shut off the seismometer, the last operating science instrument,
in late June to conserve energy. Instead, the team has now opted to keep the seismometer on until the end of August or into early September. As power wanes, the @NASAInSight team has revised the missions timeline to maximize
the chance of recording additional quakes on Mars. However, this moves the projected end of operations from December 2022 to as early as August or September. Details at https://t.co/EENpJPW3ZV

NASA JPL (@NASAJPL) June 21, 2022



The goal is to get scientific data all the way to the point where InSight
cant operate at all, rather than conserve energy and operate the lander with no science benefit, said InSights project manager Chuck Scott of NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).

While keeping the seismometer will undoubtedly produce great scientific results, it will also drain InSights power faster, likely meaning the lander will become inoperative around the time the seismometer shuts off in August
or September.

InSight hasnt finished teaching us about Mars yet. Were going to get every last bit of science we can before the lander concludes operations, said Lori Glaze, director of NASAs Planetary Science Division.

The seismometer is the final instrument operating on InSight.

But how exactly are teams planning on keeping the seismometer running in the landers final months?

Teams plan to shut down InSights fault protection system that, on InSight and almost all other spacecraft, will shut down spacecraft systems and put the craft in safe mode when certain events threaten its overall health. Such events involve extremely high or low temperatures and extremely low
spacecraft power. While this will allow InSight to keep its seismometer running longer, it leaves the lander susceptible to sudden and unexpected events that teams wouldnt have time to act upon. Taken by InSight in February 2019, this image shows the landers sensitive seismometer deployed. (Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

InSight began its mission in May 2018 and landed in the Elysium Planitia region of Mars on November 26, 2018, for what was planned as a two-year mission. Since landing, InSight has recorded an unprecedented 1,300+ marsquakes and collected massive amounts of data on Mars complex interior. Additionally, InSight has recorded local Martian weather data throughout its mission and helped investigate remnants of Mars ancient magnetic field doing so over a nearly four-year mission, twice as long as originally expected.

InSights contribution to planetary science is invaluable and, when it does send its last transmission, its accumulated data will continue to give researchers clues to Mars past, present, and future for decades to come.

Curiosity continues to trek around Gale Crater

Another NASA Mars mission that has also long outlived its planned mission duration is Curiosity, NASAs Mars Science Laboratory rover that landed in
Gale Crater almost ten years ago on August 6, 2012. Since landing in Gale Crater, Curiosity has worked hard to photograph, investigate, and drill into interesting surface formations of scientific significance.

In 2014, Curiosity began what is likely to be its most daring trek climbing Mount Sharp (Aeolis Mons). Mount Sharp is a large, 5.5km tall mountain
located in the center of Gale Crater; it features exposed sediments and rock formations that could hold valuable secrets to Mars past.

( Click here to read about Curiositys many scientific contributions. )

In 2022, Curiosity has continued to climb and explore Mount Sharp, traveling through a transition zone between a clay-rich area and a sulfate-rich area. Scientists were originally planning to study just the clay-rich and sulfate-rich regions, but they have found the transition zone between the two areas to offer many clues to Mars past and possibly a significant shift in Mars climate that occurred billions of years ago. This image shows the sulfate-rich region of the transition zone Curiosity is currently traveling through. (Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS)

Billions of years ago, when Mars once had flowing water on its surface, lakes and streams at the base of Mount Sharp in Gale Crater formed clay minerals
and deposited sediment. Since climbing Mount Sharp and driving into the transition zone, Curiosity has discovered that the lakes and streams dried up into trickles, and large sand dunes formed over the sediments deposited by
the water. See Also Curiosity Mission Updates InSight Mission Updates Space Science coverage L2 Future Spacecraft Click here to Join L2

We no longer see the lake deposits that we saw for years lower on Mount
Sharp, said Curiositys project scientist Ashwin Vasavada of JPL.Instead, we see lots of evidence of drier climates, like dry dunes that occasionally had streams running around them. Thats a big change from the lakes that persisted for perhaps millions of years before.

Whats more, Curiosity is detecting more and more sulfate as the rover continues to climb through the transition zone, and teams are planning to drill one last rock in the zone to provide a detailed glimpse into the
mineral composition of the rocks.

Interesting mineral compositions arent the only unique geologic features in the transition zone, though. The hills in the transition zone likely formed
in a dry environment with large sand dunes swept by wind. Over time, these hills hardened into rock, locking sediments in them that were likely
deposited by small ponds or streams that wove around the dunes.

Today, these sediments are erosion-resistant stacks of flaky layers, with Curiosity often imaging these areas for scientists to analyze. This image, taken by Curiosity, shows the erosion-resistant stacks of sediments once deposited by small ponds or streams in Gale Crater. (Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS)

Overall, Curiosity is nearing its 10th anniversary of surface operations on Mars an astounding achievement for the rover itself, its team back on Earth, and the engineers that built it.

However, while the rover is still going strong, teams are beginning to notice significant wear and tear on the rovers aluminum wheels, with teams noting large amounts of damage on one of the 19 grousers on Curiositys left middle wheel.

The grousers are the zig-zagging treads on Curiositys wheels, and five of the 19 grousers have been significantly damaged on the left middle wheel. As a result, teams will now decrease the time between the routine checkups Curiosity performs on its wheels.

Damaged wheels arent stopping Curiosity though, as it continues to climb and explore Mount Sharp every day.

(Lead image: InSights final selfie. Elysium Planitia, Mars. Taken April 24, 2022. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

The post InSight teams push for more science in landers final months, Curiosity continues trek around Gale Crater appeared first on NASASpaceFlight.com .



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Link to news story: https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2022/06/insight-curiosity-june-2022/


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