Mars Insight falls silent after successful mission

[Marc_G]

Goodbye, Insight!

https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/nasa-mars-lander-insight-falls-silent-after-4-95604737

 

[Hobie1dog]

hard to believe sending a craft 55 million miles and landing on a planet

 

[Peartree]

I have always been surprised that more recent landers, like InSight, didn't have a means to shake off, or wipe off, dust. I saw that one of the current fleet, I think, has a way to slightly rotate its solar arrays and vibrate them to shake off accumulated dust. It seems like this is a longstanding, and well-known problem. It surprises me that we haven't figured out a way around it. Sorry to say goodbye to good science.

 

[Rex R]

Cell phone on vibrate?

 

[techrat]

In the 1980's, the larger Mercedes sedans came with headlight wipers. No joke. Little wipers for the headlights. Talk about opulence. But it kind of annoys me that we spend a 100 million to send a craft to another planet where we KNOW we're going to have a dust issue on the solar panels, and it doesn't have those headlight wipers on the Panels. Or at least pack a compressed bottle of CO2 that has a hose end pointed at the panels. How hard is any of that? I realize there's a weight cost for every addition, but since Spirit and Opportunity, we've known about the dust problem.

 

[Marc_G]

I read an article on this, and it's all about weight vs value to the mission over it's expected lifetime. Spirit, Opportunity, Insight far outlived their nominal mission profiles and would not have needed the wipers, blowers to accomplish those missions.

 

[RocketPro]

In the 1980's, the larger Mercedes sedans came with headlight wipers. No joke. Little wipers for the headlights. Talk about opulence. But it kind of annoys me that we spend a 100 million to send a craft to another planet where we KNOW we're going to have a dust issue on the solar panels, and it doesn't have those headlight wipers on the Panels. Or at least pack a compressed bottle of CO2 that has a hose end pointed at the panels. How hard is any of that? I realize there's a weight cost for every addition, but since Spirit and Opportunity, we've known about the dust problem.

It’s harder than you can imagine…I led the team that initiated Insight and it barely fit into the cost cap. A system like would have added a large amount of risk to the mission working in the first place.

 

[OverTheTop]

In the 1980's, the larger Mercedes sedans came with headlight wipers. No joke. Little wipers for the headlights. Talk about opulence. But it kind of annoys me that we spend a 100 million to send a craft to another planet where we KNOW we're going to have a dust issue on the solar panels, and it doesn't have those headlight wipers on the Panels. Or at least pack a compressed bottle of CO2 that has a hose end pointed at the panels. How hard is any of that? I realize there's a weight cost for every addition, but since Spirit and Opportunity, we've known about the dust problem.

Not opulence for wipers on headlights, but necessity. In Sweden and other Nordic countries the snow acretes on the headlights while driving, reducing their throw greatly. Wipers fix that. A guy I work with lived there and found out first-hand the difference it makes.

 

[Greg Furtman]

hard to believe sending a craft 55 million miles and landing on a planet

I find it still hard to believe a big rocket booster can return to Earth and land safely to be flown again.

 

[Greg Furtman]

Not opulence for wipers on headlights, but necessity. In Sweden and other Nordic countries the snow acretes on the headlights while driving, reducing their throw greatly. Wipers fix that. A guy I work with lived there and found out first-hand the difference it makes.

After I got out of college in 1973 I bought a 1968 Saab 96. A number of years later I bought a 1974 Volvo 145. If they were made for Europe they would have had headlight wipers. Some models in Europe even had headlights that were moveable left or right depending upon which way you were turning.

 

[Cape Byron]

Some models in Europe even had headlights that were moveable left or right depending upon which way you were turning.

Citroen introduced steering headlights on the 1967 update of the DS.

 

[Rocket86]

The Tucker 48/Torpedo had them, one at least, in 1948.

 

[lakeroadster]

In the 1980's, the larger Mercedes sedans came with headlight wipers. No joke. Little wipers for the headlights. Talk about opulence. But it kind of annoys me that we spend a 100 million to send a craft to another planet where we KNOW we're going to have a dust issue on the solar panels, and it doesn't have those headlight wipers on the Panels. Or at least pack a compressed bottle of CO2 that has a hose end pointed at the panels. How hard is any of that? I realize there's a weight cost for every addition, but since Spirit and Opportunity, we've known about the dust problem.

Every project has a mission. Insight was a successful mission. Eventually, every mechanical thing will fail. The dust was not a "problem".

 

[Funkworks]

Martian winds probably helped make InSight last as long as it did. Interestingly, it measured wind speed itself until early 2021.

https://mars.nasa.gov/insight/weather/

 

[kuririn]

Martian winds probably helped make InSight last as long as it did. Interestingly, it measured wind speed itself until early 2021.

https://mars.nasa.gov/insight/weather/

I was watching the movie "Good Night, Oppy" on Netflix Amazon a couple of weeks ago. It's about the Mars rover Opportunity. The crew was worried about the dust buildup on the solar panels after a few months. But after a windstorm the panels looked almost good as new. It wound up driving around Mars for 15 years!

 

[Hobie1dog]

still seems impossible to get video from a craft 55 million miles away

 

[CalebJ]

still seems impossible to get video from a craft 55 million miles away

Low data rates and high gain antennas get you a long way.