NASA’s InSight mission team has decided to make some changes to the final operations of the lander in order to get more scientific data out of the mission. Due to the increasing amount of dust on the solar panels, the lander has powered down various instruments to conserve battery life as long as possible. The plan was to let the lander run until December of this year.

Now, however, the seismometer will continue operations until August or possibly September. This will cause the battery to run down more quickly but also allow for the collection of more data. To keep the seismometer up and running, InSight’s team is going to turn off the fault protection system. This means that, in the event of a sudden, unexpected, and potentially hazardous event, the fault protection system will be unable to trigger safe mode for the lander.

Since InSight is in its last few months of operations, it seems reasonable to make this change to keep the science coming. Project manager Chuck Scott notes: The goal is to get scientific data all the way to the point where InSight can’t operate at all, rather than conserve energy and operate the lander with no science benefit.

We’ll bring you more updates as NASA releases them.

More Information

NASA press release