After greater than 15 years of operation, NASA has turned off one in all six science instruments aboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.
The Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars, or CRISM, produced global maps of minerals of the Red Planet’s surface. In response to NASA, the instrument was switched off on April 3, 2023, a move the agency said it has been planning since last yr.
“Shutting down CRISM marks the top of an era for us,” said Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter project scientist Wealthy Zurek in an agency news release. “It’s revealed where and the way water transformed ancient Mars. The CRISM data products shall be mined by scientists for years to come back.”
CRISM and five other instruments launched aboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter in 2005. The spacecraft, which is managed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, has been orbiting the red world since 2006. NASA said CRISM was a tool that helped scientists learn in regards to the composition of the Martian surface.
Using its two detectors, the instrument was capable of discover minerals, rocks, and other materials on the planet’s surface, collecting a wealth of data, including data about how lakes, streams and groundwater shaped Mars billions of years ago. CRISM is led by scientists at Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Laboratory in Maryland.
NASA said it relied on CRISM maps to make a decision where to send each Mars rovers Curiosity and Perseverance, which landed on the Red Planet in 2012 and 2021, respectively.
In response to NASA, CRISM, which observes visible and infrared light, relied on cryocoolers to isolate its infrared spectrometer from the heat of the spacecraft. The agency said three cryocoolers were utilized in succession, with the ultimate completing its lifecycle in 2017.
Since then, CRISM has been used to create two recent nearly-global maps of Mars that relied on data previously collected by the infrared spectrometer, as well data from its visible light spectrometer.
“With these recent maps, researchers can easily tie mineral deposits observed in high-resolution images to regional scale trends, landscape features, and geology,” said Kim Seelos, CRISM’s deputy principal investigator at APL. “Regardless that the CRISM investigation is formally coming to a detailed, I hope and expect to see many future scientists making the most of CRISM data for his or her research.”
The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter is one in all three operational satellites owned by america circling the Red Planet. There are also two lively orbiters from the European Space Agency, one from the United Arab Emirates and one other from China.
Moreover, there are two lively nuclear powered NASA rovers at different locations on the surface of Mars, one in all which has a drone-like helicopter as an exploration assistant.
China also has a solar-powered rover on Mars. Called Zhurong, it landed in May 2021. In May 2022, the vehicle was placed into hibernation for the Martian winter. It was speculated to autonomously get up six months later, but this has yet to occur.