Mars lander InSight is awake from safe mode after dust storm

By Georgina Torbet Published April 28, 2022

NASA’s InSight lander on Mars has returned to normal operations after a break of around two weeks due to a regional dust storm. The lander is currently active, but its science instruments will remain off until the full effects of the dust storm can be ascertained.

Mars is the dustiest place in the solar system, with a combination of low gravity due to its small size and thin atmosphere with many air currents due to changes in temperature. That means that dust can easily be whipped up off the surface and cause regional or even global dust storms which researchers are only beginning to understand. But more than a meteorological oddity, this has a direct effect on machines on the surface of the planet.

This selfie of NASA’s InSight lander is a mosaic made up of 14 images taken on March 15 and April 11. — This selfie of NASA’s InSight lander is a mosaic made up of 14 images taken on March 15 and April 11 – the 106th and 133rd Martian days, or sols, of the mission – by the spacecraft Instrument Deployment Camera located on its robotic arm. NASA/JPL-Caltech

Dust storms cause problems for explorers like InSight which rely on solar panels for their power in two ways. Firstly, the dust in the atmosphere filters the already relatively weak sunlight that Mars experiences, meaning there is less light reaching the surface. Secondly, the dust settles on solar panels and blocks off even more of the light. This is why dust storms have spelled the end for previous Mars explorers, such as the long-lived Opportunity rover which went dark after a regional dust storm in 2018, and also why the team for the Mars helicopter Ingenuity chose to delay its most recent flight.

Recommended Videos

To keep explorers like InSight going as long as possible, engineers put them into safe mode when they know a dust storm is approaching. This minimal mode turns off all but the essential components of the lander in order to converse power. Earlier this month, the InSight team got a warning from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, an orbiting Mars observation craft, that a dust storm was on its way and they put the lander into safe mode on January 7.

Please enable Javascript to view this content

In an update on January 19, the InSight team confirmed that InSight had survived its almost two-week break and was powering on again now that the storm has passed. “NASA’s InSight has exited safe mode and resumed normal operations, although its science instruments remain off. Skies appear to be clearing of dust above the spacecraft,” NASA wrote. “Over the next two weeks, the mission team will assess the effects of dust accumulation on the lander’s power.”

Topics

Georgina Torbet

Space Writer

Georgina has been the space writer at Digital Trends space writer for six years, covering human space exploration, planetary…

Space

NASA’s wild plan to launch a rocket from Mars is ‘like something from an amusement park’

An illustration shows a rocket tossed in the air from the surface of Mars and igniting.

When it comes to missions to Mars, NASA has been on a winning streak in recent decades. Its Spirit, Opportunity, Phoenix, Curiosity, InSight, and Perseverance missions have all landed successfully on the Martian surface, and we're learning more than ever before about how to land on and explore the planet safely. The agency’s next plans for Mars, however, are a whole new level of ambitious. The Perseverance rover has been collecting samples of Mars dust and rock as it travels around, and the aim of the Mars Sample Return mission is to get those samples back to Earth.

The exact design of the mission has changed since it was first announced, but the current plan involves sending a lander to the surface called the Sample Return Lander (SRL) and then getting Perseverance to drop off the samples at this lander. Those samples will be loaded into a rocket inside the lander called the Mars Ascent Vehicle, which will launch into Mars orbit, where it will rendezvous with a spacecraft called the Earth Return Orbiter, which will bring those samples back to Earth.

Space

How one NASA lander decoded secrets lying beneath the surface of Mars

Dust blankets the solar panels of the Mars Insight lander, shortly before its demise.

Dust blankets the solar panels of the Mars Insight lander, shortly before its demise. NASA

The life of the Mars InSight lander came to an end last year as its solar panels were covered with dust and its power supply slowly dwindled away. After four years of research and data collection, NASA officially declared the end of the mission in December 2022.

Space

Perseverance rover catches footage of a dust devil on Mars

mars 2020 perseverance rover

Many of the weather events we experience here on Earth can be found on other planets too, and that includes whirlwinds. Several missions have observed small whirlwinds called dust devils on Mars, and the Perseverance rover recently captured footage of one such dust devil in action as it rolled across the martian surface.

The footage was captured by one of Perseverance's black-and-white navigation cameras, called Navcams, and shows a dust devil moving at a speed of around 12 mph across a regions known as the Thorofare Ridge. You can clearly see the dust devil as a white column moving across the top of the ridge in an animation posted by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which manages the rover.