NASA has officially said goodbye to the InSight spacecraft, which has been exploring Mars for the past four years.. According to Science Alert, the mission team was unable to establish contact with the probe during the last two attempts, as a result, scientists concluded that it ran out of energy..

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At the same time, the agency will continue to study the signals in case the device contacts again.. The last communication session with him took place a week ago.. But the restoration of contact with InSight in NASA is considered unlikely.

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“For the past four years, we have treated InSight as our friend and colleague on Mars, so it’s hard to say goodbye.. But he has a well-deserved retirement,"

InSight is one of four vehicles that operate on the surface of Mars.. NASA's Perseverance and Curiosity rovers, as well as China's Zhurong, will continue work.

InSight arrived on Mars in 2018. His task was to study the internal structure of the Red Planet, he did an excellent job with this task thanks to the seismometer. The device was also supposed to drill the Martian soil, but after several years of unsuccessful attempts, scientists abandoned this task..

At the same time, InSight was able not only to reveal the internal structure of Mars, it also registered 1319 quakes, some of which were associated with the fall of meteorites..

In June 2021, mission scientists noticed that the craft's solar panels were generating less and less power due to the dust that settled on them.. Attempts to clean the batteries using a robotic arm were unsuccessful, so the mission team began to gradually prepare for the “death” of the apparatus..

Martian dust has become a problem not only for InSight. So, the rovers Perseverance and Curiosity use nuclear energy, but their predecessors, the “twins” Spirit and Opportunity, were forced to deal with the accumulation of dust on the panels, a dust storm killed the latter.