InSight status: Barely hanging on
The science team for the InSight lander on Mars today posted an update on the power the spacecraft’s dust covered solar panels are producing. I have added that data to my on-going graph of these power levels, to the right. From the update:
On October 19, 2022, InSight was generating an average between 275 and 285 watt-hours of energy per Martian day, or sol. The tau, or level of dust cover in the atmosphere, was estimated at 1.5 (typical tau levels outside of dust season range from 0.6-0.7).
The jump in tau level is due to a large dust storm that developed in September more than two thousand miles away in the southern hemisphere. Though it is so far away, that storm put a lot more dust in the atmosphere above InSight, and forced engineers to shut down all but its most essential functions.
That storm is apparently continuing, and might even be growing. If so, the future of InSight is dim indeed. Any further drop in the amount of power it generates daily will likely make it unable to operate at all, and the mission will end.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
The science team for the InSight lander on Mars today posted an update on the power the spacecraft’s dust covered solar panels are producing. I have added that data to my on-going graph of these power levels, to the right. From the update:
On October 19, 2022, InSight was generating an average between 275 and 285 watt-hours of energy per Martian day, or sol. The tau, or level of dust cover in the atmosphere, was estimated at 1.5 (typical tau levels outside of dust season range from 0.6-0.7).
The jump in tau level is due to a large dust storm that developed in September more than two thousand miles away in the southern hemisphere. Though it is so far away, that storm put a lot more dust in the atmosphere above InSight, and forced engineers to shut down all but its most essential functions.
That storm is apparently continuing, and might even be growing. If so, the future of InSight is dim indeed. Any further drop in the amount of power it generates daily will likely make it unable to operate at all, and the mission will end.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
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