Opportunity’s last communication with Earth was received June 10, 2018, as a planet-wide dust storm blanketed the solar-powered rover’s location on the western rim of Perseverance Valley, eventually blocking out so much sunlight that the rover could no longer charge its batteries.

Although the storm eventually abated and the skies over Perseverance cleared, the 15-year-old rover has not communicated with Earth since then.

“I haven’t given up yet. This could be the end. Under the assumption that this is the end, it feels good. I mean that” The New York Time quoted Cornell University Professor Steven Squyres, the mission’s Principal Investigator, as saying.

If the storm knocked out the rover for good, “that’s an honorable death”, he added.

In a last bit of effort, engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, are transmitting a new set of commands to the Opportunity rover in an attempt to compel the 15-year-old Martian explorer to contact Earth.

The new commands, which will be beamed to the rover during the next several weeks, address low-likelihood events that could have occurred aboard Opportunity, preventing it from transmitting, NASA said.

“We have and will continue to use multiple techniques in our attempts to contact the rover,” said John Callas, project manager for Opportunity at the JPL.

“Over the past seven months, we have attempted to contact Opportunity over 600 times.

“While we have not heard back from the rover and the probability that we ever will is decreasing each day, we plan to continue to pursue every logical solution that could put us back in touch,” he said.

The “dust-clearing season” — the time of year on Mars when increased winds could clear the rover’s solar panels of dust that might be preventing it from charging its batteries — is drawing to a close.

Meanwhile, Mars is heading into southern winter, which brings with it extremely low temperatures that are likely to cause irreparable harm to an unpowered rover’s batteries, internal wiring and/or computer systems.

Opportunity and its twin rover, Spirit, were launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, in 2003.

Spirit landed on Mars in 2004, and its mission ended in 2011.

The rover landed in a region called Meridiani Planum on January 25, 2004, sending its first signal back to Earth from the surface at 12.05 a.m., the US space agency said in a statement on Thursday.

The golf-cart-sized rover was designed to travel 1,006 metres and operate on the Red Planet for 90 Martian days (sols). It has travelled over 45 km and logged its 5,000th Martian day last February.

“Fifteen years on the surface of Mars is a testament not only to a magnificent machine of exploration but the dedicated and talented team behind it that has allowed us to expand our discovery space of the Red Planet,” said John Callas, project manager for Opportunity at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California.

“However, this anniversary cannot help but be a little bittersweet as at present we don’t know the rover’s status. We are doing everything in our power to communicate with Opportunity, but as time goes on, the probability of a successful contact with the rover continues to diminish,” Callas added.

Opportunity’s last communication with Earth was received June 10, 2018, as a planet-wide dust storm blanketed the solar-powered rover’s location on the western rim of Perseverance Valley, eventually blocking out so much sunlight that the rover could no longer charge its batteries.

Although the storm eventually abated and the skies over Perseverance cleared, the rover has not communicated with Earth since then.

However, Opportunity’s mission continues, in a phase where mission engineers at JPL are sending commands to as well as listening for signals from the rover. If engineers hear from the rover, they could attempt a recovery.

Opportunity and its twin rover, Spirit, launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, in 2003. Spirit landed on Mars in 2004, and its mission ended in 2011.

Speaking to BBC Radio 5 Live, Anders, lunar module pilot of Apollo 8, the first human spaceflight to leave Earth’s orbit, said sending crews to Mars was “almost ridiculous”.

Anders’ comment came as Nasa prepares new human missions to the Moon. It also wants to learn the skills and develop the technology to enable a future human landing on Mars.

Nasa was approached for a response to Anders’ comments but has not responded.

Anders, 85, said he is a “big supporter” of the “remarkable” unmanned programmes, “mainly because they’re much cheaper”. But he added the public support simply was not there to fund vastly more expensive human missions.

“What’s the imperative? What’s pushing us to go to Mars?” he said, adding “I don’t think the public is that interested”.

Robotic probes have been exploring Mars. In November, the InSight lander, which would sample the planet’s interior, successfully touched down at Elysium Planitia.

In December 1968, Anders, along with crewmates Frank Borman and Jim Lovell, lifted off from Cape Canaveral in Florida atop a Saturn V, before completing 10 orbits around the Moon.

The crew of Apollo 8 spent 20 hours in orbit, before returning to Earth.

They splashed down in the Pacific on December 27, landing just 4,500 metres from their target point. They were picked up by the aircraft carrier USS Yorktown.

It was the furthest humans had ever been from their home planet at that point — and a vital stepping stone on the road to Apollo 11’s historic moon landing just seven months later.

However, the former astronaut was scathing about how Nasa has evolved since the heady days of President John F Kennedy’s pledge to land a man on the Moon by the end of the 1960s, the BBC report said.

“Nasa couldn’t get to the Moon today. They’re so ossified… Nasa has turned into a jobs programme… many of the centres are mainly interested in keeping busy and you don’t see the public support other than they get the workers their pay and their congressmen get re-elected,” Anders said.

He was also critical of the decision to focus on near-Earth orbit exploration after the completion of the Apollo programme in the 1970s.

“I think the space shuttle was a serious error. It hardly did anything except have an exciting launch, but it never lived up to its promise,” he said.

“The space station is only there because you had a shuttle, and vice-versa. Nasa really mismanaged the manned programme since the late lunar landings.”

It’s a view that might seem surprising from a proud patriot and servant of the US military, who still remembers his own mission to space with great fondness.

Anders’ view doesn’t sit too well with some in the space community.

“I think Nasa’s lucky to have what they’ve got — which is still hard, in my mind, to justify. I’m not a very popular guy at Nasa for saying that, but that’s what I think,” he explained.

New images from the lander showed the seismometer on the ground, it’s copper-colored covering faintly illuminated in the Martian dusk, according to the InSight team on Thursday.

“InSight’s timetable of activities on Mars has gone better than we hoped,” said InSight Project Manager Tom Hoffman, who is based at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, Xinhua reported.

“Getting the seismometer safely on the ground is an awesome Christmas present,” he said.

The InSight team has been working carefully toward deploying its two dedicated science instruments onto Martian soil since landing on Mars on November 26. Besides the seismometer, also known as the Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure (SEIS), the other one is the heat probe, known as the Heat Flow and Physical Properties Probe (HP3).

Meanwhile, the Rotation and Interior Structure Experiment (RISE), which does not have its own separate instrument, has already begun using InSight’s radio connection with Earth to collect preliminary data on the planet’s core, said the InSight team.

To ensure the successful deployment of the instruments, engineers had to verify the robotic arm that picks up and places InSight’s instruments onto the Martian surface was working properly.

They also had to analyze images of the Martian terrain around the lander to figure out the best places to deploy the instruments, said the team.

InSight engineers sent up the commands to the spacecraft on Tuesday, and the seismometer was gently placed onto the ground by the arm in front of the lander on Wednesday, according to the team.

“Seismometer deployment is as important as landing InSight on Mars,” said InSight Principal Investigator Bruce Banerdt.

“The seismometer is the highest-priority instrument on InSight. We need it in order to complete about three-quarters of our science objectives,” he said.

The seismometer allows scientists to peer into the Martian interior by studying ground motion, also known as marsquakes. By analyzing how seismic waves pass through the layers of the planet, scientists can deduce the depth and composition of these layers.

In the coming days, the InSight team will work on leveling the seismometer. The first seismometer science data will flow back to Earth after the seismometer is in the right position, said the team.

The heat probe is scheduled to be placed onto the Martian surface by late January, on the east side of the lander’s workspace, according to the team.

InSight landed safely on Mars on November 26, kicking off a two-year mission to explore the deep interior of the Red Planet.

With a reach of nearly 6 feet (2 meters), the arm will be used to pick up science instruments from the lander’s deck, gently setting them on the Martian surface at Elysium Planitia, the lava plain where InSight touched down on November 26.

But first, the arm will use its Instrument Deployment Camera, located on its elbow, to take photos of the terrain in front of the lander, the space agency said in a statement on Thursday.

These images will help mission team members determine where to set InSight’s seismometer and heat flow probe — the only instruments ever to be robotically placed on the surface of another planet, it added.

“Today we can see the first glimpses of our workspace,” said Bruce Banerdt, the mission’s principal investigator at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California.

“By early next week, we’ll be imaging it in finer detail and creating a full mosaic.”

Another camera, called the Instrument Context Camera, is located under the lander’s deck. It will also offer views of the workspace, though the view won’t be as pretty.

“We had a protective cover on the Instrument Context Camera, but somehow dust still managed to get onto the lens,” said JPL’s Tom Hoffman, InSight project manager.

“While this is unfortunate, it will not affect the role of the camera, which is to take images of the area in front of the lander where our instruments will eventually be placed.”

Over the past week and a half, mission engineers have been testing those instruments and spacecraft systems, ensuring they were in working order.

More images from InSight’s arm were scheduled to come down this past weekend. However, imaging was momentarily interrupted, resuming the following day.

Spacecraft engineers had already factored extra time into their estimates for instrument deployment to account for likely delays caused by faults. The mission’s primary mission is scheduled for two Earth years, or one Mars year.

NASA’s online live broadcast reported InSight touched down on Mars at approximately 2:54 p.m. EST (1954 GMT), after a six-month, 300-million-mile (480-million-km) journey.

The lander plunged through the thin Martian atmosphere at about 2:47 p.m. EST (1947 GMT), heatshield first, and used a supersonic parachute to slow down. Then, it fired its retrorockets to slowly descend to the surface of Mars, and landed on the smooth plains of Elysium Planitia, Xinhua news agency reported.

InSight is being followed to Mars by two mini-spacecraft comprising NASA’s Mars Cube One (MarCO), the first deep-space mission for CubeSats, which attempt to relay data from InSight as it enters the planet’s atmosphere and lands.

At about 3 p.m. EST (2000 GMT), MarCO sent back the first picture of Mars.

InSight will detect geophysical signals deep below the Martian surface, including marsquakes and heat. Scientists will also be able to track radio signals from the stationary spacecraft, which vary based on the wobble in Mars’ rotation, according to NASA.

InSight and MarCO flight controllers monitored and cheered for the spacecraft’s successful entry, descent, and landing from mission control at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

It took the InSight team about four to five years to design and execute the mission, said an engineer at the mission control. He said the basic design of InSight was inherited from the Phoenix spacecraft, which landed on Mars on May 25, 2008.

To look deep into Mars, the lander must be at a place where it can stay still and quiet for its entire mission. That’s why scientists chose Elysium Planitia as InSight’s home, according to NASA.

The red planet is comparatively easy to land on and is less likely to melt equipment than Venus or Mercury, according to NASA.

Launched on May 5, InSight marks NASA’s first Mars landing since the Curiosity rover in 2012 and the first dedicated to studying the deep interior of Mars.

InSight cruised 301,223,981 miles at a top speed of 6,200 mph while being followed by two cube satellites, CNN reported.

“We’ve studied Mars from orbit and from the surface since 1965, learning about its weather, atmosphere, geology and surface chemistry,” Lori Glaze, acting director of the Planetary Science Division in NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, was quoted as saying.

“Now we finally will explore inside Mars and deepen our understanding of our terrestrial neighbor as NASA prepares to send human explorers deeper into the solar system.”

It is going to use seismometers to study the planet’s interior so we can learn more about how it formed and why it’s so different from Earth, BBC reported on Sunday.

In less than two days, NASA is landing on Mars with NASA InSight! Thank you to the NASA workforce… Let’s get this done and start the next phase!, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine tweeted on Saturday.

InSight will hit the top of the Martian atmosphere at 19,800 kilometers per hour (kph) and slow down to eight kph — about human jogging speed — before its three legs touch down on Martian soil.

That extreme deceleration has to happen in just under seven minutes.

“There’s a reason engineers call landing on Mars ‘seven minutes of terror’,” Rob Grover, InSight’s entry, descent, and landing (EDL) lead, based at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, has said in a statement.

“We can’t joystick the landing, so we have to rely on the commands we pre-programmed into the spacecraft. We’ve spent years testing our plans, learning from other Mars landings and studying all the conditions Mars can throw at us.

“And we’re going to stay vigilant till InSight settles into its home in the Elysium Planitia region,” Grover said.

Launched on May 5, Mars Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport (InSight) lander marks NASA’s first Mars landing since the Curiosity rover in 2012.

The landing will kick off a two-year mission in which InSight will become the first spacecraft to study Mars’ deep interior.

Its data will also help scientists understand the formation of all rocky worlds, including our own.

About 80 live viewing events for the public to watch the InSight landing will take place around the world. It will be at 1.30 a.m. on Tuesday in India.

People from around the world will be able to watch the event live on NASA Television, the agency’s website, and social media platforms, including on YouTube.

InSight will hit the top of the Martian atmosphere at 19,800 kilometers per hour (kph) and slow down to eight kph — about human jogging speed — before its three legs touch down on Martian soil.

That extreme deceleration has to happen in just under seven minutes.

“There’s a reason engineers call landing on Mars ‘seven minutes of terror,'” Rob Grover, InSight’s entry, descent and landing (EDL) lead, based at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, said in a statement.

“We can’t joystick the landing, so we have to rely on the commands we pre-programmed into the spacecraft. We’ve spent years testing our plans, learning from other Mars landings and studying all the conditions Mars can throw at us.

“And we’re going to stay vigilant till InSight settles into its home in the Elysium Planitia region,” Grover said.

Launched on May 5, Mars Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport (InSight) lander marks NASA’s first Mars landing since the Curiosity rover in 2012.

The landing will kick off a two-year mission in which InSight will become the first spacecraft to study Mars’ deep interior.

Its data also will help scientists understand the formation of all rocky worlds, including our own.

About 80 live viewing events for the public to watch the InSight landing will take place around the world. It will be at 3 p.m. EST meaning 1.30 a.m. in India on November 27.

People from around the world will be able to watch the event live on NASA Television, the agency’s website, and social media platforms, including on YouTube.

“Landing on Mars is exciting, but scientists are looking forward to the time after InSight lands,” said Lori Glaze, Acting Director of the Planetary Science Division at NASA headquarters.

Phobos’ grooves, which are visible across most of the moon’s surface, were first identified in the 1970s by NASA’s Mariner and Viking missions.

While some scientists posited that large impacts on Mars have showered the nearby moon with groove-carving debris, others suggested that Mars’ gravity is slowly tearing Phobos apart, and the grooves are signs of structural failure.

To confirm, a team from Brown University in the US designed computer models that showed that boulders ejected from Stickney could have created the puzzling patterns of grooves seen on Phobos.

Stickney is a huge crater at nine kilometers across for a moon the size of diminutive Phobos (27 kilometers across at its widest point).

“These grooves are a distinctive feature of Phobos, and how they formed has been debated by planetary scientists for 40 years,” said Ken Ramsley, a planetary science researcher at Brown University who led the work.

“We think this study is another step toward zeroing in on an explanation.”

The simulations show that because of Phobos’ small size and relatively weak gravity, Stickney stones just keep on rolling rather than stopping after a kilometer or so like they might on a larger body.

In fact, some boulders would have rolled and bounded their way all the way around the tiny moon, explaining why some grooves are not radially aligned to the crater, the researchers noted in the paper published in the journal Planetary and Space Science.

In some cases, the globe-trotting boulders rolled all the way back to where they started — Stickney, indicating why the crater itself has grooves.

In addition, there are fairly low-elevation areas on Phobos surrounded by a higher-elevation lip, with no grooves at all.

“It’s like a ski jump,” Ramsley said. “The boulders keep going but suddenly there’s no ground under them. They end up doing this suborbital flight over this zone.”

“We think this makes a pretty strong case that it was this rolling boulder model that accounts for most if not all the grooves on Phobos,” Ramsley said.

Jezero Crater, 45 kilometres in size, is located on the western edge of Isidis Planitia — a giant impact basin just north of the Martian equator.

Its ancient lake-delta system offers many promising sampling targets of at least five different kinds of rock, including clays and carbonates that have high potential to preserve signatures of past life.

“The landing site in Jezero Crater offers geologically rich terrain, with landforms reaching as far back as 3.6 billion years, that could potentially answer important questions in planetary evolution and astrobiology,” Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, said in a statement on Monday.

“Getting samples from this unique area will revolutionize how we think about Mars and its ability to harbour life,” he added.

The crater, once home to an ancient river delta, could have collected and preserved ancient organic molecules and other potential signs of microbial life from the water and sediments that flowed into the crater billions of years ago.

In addition, the site contains numerous boulders and rocks to the east, cliffs to the west, and depressions filled with aeolian bedforms (wind-derived ripples in sand that could trap a rover) in several locations.

Selecting a landing site this early allows the Rover drivers and science operations team to optimise their plans for exploring Jezero Crater once the Rover is safely on the ground.

The Rover mission is scheduled to launch in July 2020 as NASA’s next step in exploration of the Red Planet.

It will not only seek signs of ancient habitable conditions and past microbial life but will also collect rock and soil samples and store them in a cache on the planet’s surface.

Earlier in November, ExoMars rover — the European Space Agency (ESA) and Russian Roscosmos’ joint venture to the Red Planet that will set out in 2020 — also chose a landing site on Mars’ equator called Oxia Planum, which had in the prehistoric era housed a massive pool of water.