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ATG Medialab / ESA
Two communication satellites from NASA's Mars Cube One mission, the MarCO-A and the MarCO-B, remain silent beyond March.
Named WALL-E and EVE in honor of the animated film "WALL-E", they are devices the size of a suitcase and format CubeSat . Launched last year, "seems to have reached its limit" after traveling beyond the red planet, according to the agency statement. There has been more communication with them for more than a month and NASA engineers believe that it is unlikely that the situation will recover.
MarCO-A and MarCO-B served as a communications relay during the landing of another aircraft on Mars. NASA, the InSight probe. The WALL-E camera sent awesome images of the red planet while the EVE was performing radiology .
The last time the WALL-E sent anything was December 29th and Eve on December 4th. January. According to the trajectory calculations, the first must now be more than 1.6 million kilometers from Mars and the second to nearly 3.2 million kilometers
NASA specialists currently admit badumptions different on the reason of the loss of contact with the mission.
The statement notes that WALL-E is showing leaks on the propeller and suggests that some activity control problems may have affected the ability to send and receive orders . Another problem could be the light sensors that allow the satellites to stay in the sun and recharge the batteries.
In any case, even if the engineers can not restore contact, NASA considers their work to be successful. "This mission has always been to push the boundaries of small technology and see as far as possible ", "while" the future CubeSats could go further, "said Chief Engineer Andy Klesh. "These little gadgets have great potential," concluded another expert, John Baker.
