Engineers taking long-distance care of NASA鈥檚 Phoenix Mars lander are planning to start turning off its heaters one by one and let it freeze to death.
The lander has been sending back data for five months 鈥� far longer than the original three months it was supposed to last. But as the Sun鈥檚 light fades, it will start to lose power.
鈥淎s expected, with the Martian northern hemisphere shifting from summer to fall, the lander is generating less power due to shorter days and fewer hours of sunlight reaching its solar panels,鈥� NASA said in a statement on Tuesday.
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The lander has recorded snowfall, scraped up ice and found that the dust on the surface of Mars chemically resembles seawater, adding to evidence that liquid water 鈥� that may have supported life 鈥� once flowed on the planet鈥檚 surface.
鈥淚f we did nothing, it wouldn鈥檛 be long before the power needed to operate the spacecraft would exceed the amount of power it generates on a daily basis,鈥� project manager Barry Goldstein of NASA鈥檚 Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California said in a statement.
鈥淏y turning off some heaters and instruments, we can extend the life of the lander by several weeks and still conduct some science.鈥�
NASA said four survival heaters will be shut down one at a time to save power, starting on Tuesday and continuing over the coming weeks.
The Phoenix team has left a thermal and electrical-conductivity probe thrust into the soil to measure temperature, humidity and conductivity. The probe does not need a heater and should continue to send back data for weeks.
Mars Rovers 鈥� Mars is full of surprises; learn more in our continually updated .
