NASA recovers Insight lander from safe mode as skies get cleared on Mars

NASA has finally recovered its Mars Insight lander from safe mode after its power supply was hindered owing to a strong regional dust storm on the red planet. Providing an update via Twitter, NASA informed that the lander is no longer in safe mode and the Insight team will begin the operations soon. "Our @NASAInSight lander has exited "safe mode" after a recent Martian dust storm forced it to conserve energy. Teams aim to resume science operations next week for the marsquake-detecting probe", NASA wrote on Twitter.

The team handling the rover also revealed that the skies are getting cleared, although, the engineers would wait for a few more days before beginning the normal operations. "Skies seem to be clearing overhead, so I’m out of safe mode and back to more normal operations", Insight's tweet read. "I’ll wait to start doing more science until I know how much power I can expect to generate once the storm settles", it added.

Why was Insight in safe mode?

The lander, which landed on Mars in 2018 to study the red planet’s inner structure, was put into safe mode to conserve energy as the dust settling on the solar panels had significantly reduced the power supply. Power conservation is an essential factor in keeping the instruments alive as a higher usage and less supply would result in a condition faced by NASA's Opportunity rover. Opportunity was declared 'dead' in 2018 after a massive dust storm that blanketed Mars covered the rover's solar panels thus completely cutting the power supply. 

NASA had revealed that the recent dust storm was detected by the Mars Color Imager (MARCI) camera fitted on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter which informed Insight of the approaching danger. With this camera, scientists are able to create coloured maps of the entire planet every day, which can be used to monitor dust storms and issue early warnings. However, if dust storms cause a shortage of power, they also help in clearing the dust accumulated on the solar panels from the previous storms. While the clearing of solar panels is still awaited, NASA had assured that Insight was not in trouble as there was a constant supply of power despite the dust layer.