NASA’s InSight lawyer has new life contracts on Mars and Jupiter’s Juno orbiter.
Why it’s important to: The spacecraft is expected to continue collecting data about their individual planetary targets during their new missions, allowing scientists to learn more about seismic activity on Mars and turn their attention to the Jupiter mountains.
Where: Juno’s mission was extended to September 2025 or when his life ends in an accident into the atmosphere of Jupiter.
- InSight will continue its mission to study the geology and seismic activity of Mars from the Martian surface through December 2022.
What now: Both missions are expected to make good use of their extended time at Jupiter and Mars.
- In the next two years at InSight, the spacecraft will be collecting more data on marsquakes to help create a long-term data set that scientists can reference for years to come, according to NASA.
- Juno will expand the scope of his studies to track Jupiter’s rings and branches including flybys of Ganymede, Europa and Io.
The big picture: NASA often extends the missions of its satellites and spacecraft into space if they work well and still carry useful data home.
- The Mars Opportunity rover, for example, landed on Mars in 2004 for a 90-day mission, but the small spacecraft was able to orbit the Red Planet for nearly 15 years, after to give him several long missions.