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Reuters
Reuters
Science
By Steve Gorman

NASA formally retires Mars InSight lander after 4-year mission

FILE PHOTO: A life-size model of the spaceship Insight, NASA's first robotic lander dedicated to studying the deep interior of Mars, is shown at Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, U.S. November 26, 2018. REUTERS/Mike Blake

NASA has formally retired its Mars InSight lander, the first robotic probe specially designed to study the deep interior of a distant world, four years after it arrived on the surface of the red planet, the U.S. space agency announced on Wednesday.

Mission controllers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) near Los Angeles determined the mission was over when two consecutive attempts to re-establish radio contact with the lander failed, a sign that InSight's solar-powered batteries had run out of energy.

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