Week 23, 2022: InSight Lander to End Four-Year-long Mission by December 2022
Final self-portrait image of InSight, taken on April 24, 2022
InSight will end its mission on Mars this year, after engineers calculated it would not produce sufficient power at the end of Martian summer due to intense covering of dust in its solar panels. It might come out as soon as July 2022, but if all things goes well, it will slowly power down each instrument one by one until it is finally decommissioned by December 2022.
The 12th mission of NASA's Discovery Program, InSight was launched in May 5, 2018 aboard an Atlas V rocket from Vandenberg AFB in California, USA (a first in planetary exploration history). Shortly after the global dust storm (that killed Opportunity) ended, the spacecraft landed on Elysium Planitia on November 26, 2018 and started its four-year mission to study the interior of the Red Planet
The InSight lander is available for download in the Spacecrafts category here
Source: DW
Newest Addons of the Fortnight
These are the newest and updated add-ons available for download starting last week (May 23 - June 5, 2022) by category
Asteroids & NEOs
I'm 33434 Scottmanley, "Fly Safe"!
- 4942 Munroe by Gurren Lagann
- 33434 Scottmanley by Gurren Lagann
- 165347 Philplait by Gurren Lagann
Comets
The debris trail of Comet Schwassmann-Wachmann 3 in February 2006
- 73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann by Zemlyanin and gradius_fanatic
Exoplanets
Kepler-1708 b and its Neptune-sized satellite, the second such exomoon discovered
- Gliese 3323 by Trolligi and Steve Bowers
- Kepler-1708 by Gurren Lagann
Fictional
View from one of the 550 planets orbiting around the supermassive black hole known as Cormoran
- Black Hole System by Anthony_B_Russo10, SevenSpheres, and gironde
- Celestia Version 1.0 Icon Planet by Anthony_B_Russo10
- Rainbow by Anthony_B_Russo10
ArcBuilder Universe
- ABU: 37 Geminorum by jmdollan
- ABU: 82 Eridani by jmdollan
- ABU: Gliese 783 by jmdollan
Planets & Moons
The planets of the Solar System in their 1980s-style art concepts
- Solar System (JPL/Caltech Textures) by SpaceExplorer
Spacecraft
The five Space Shuttle orbiters (Columbia, Challenger, Discovery, Atlantis, and Endeavour). Take note that the payloads rendered are not yet available, but will be posted in future updates of this addon
- Alouette 1 and 2 by Snowfall-The-Cat
- ISIS 1 and 2 by Snowfall-The-Cat, and toutatis
- Galileo by toutatis, and FarGetaNik
- Space Shuttle by DaveBowman2001, gironde, and bh
Updates
Other news: What's new in Celestia 1.5.7