NASA’s “WALL-E” satellite has mysteriously gone silent after zooming past Mars and the government space agency isn’t sure why.
The small satellite (known as a cube satellite or cubesat) is one of the first two to leave Earth’s orbit. The satellites have not communicated with the government space agency for more than a month, NASA said on Tuesday. The two MarCO spacecraft (MarCO-A and MarCO-B) were launched from Earth in May 2018 and it’s possible that the devices may have simply reached their limits.
The launch of the two MarCO (short for Mars Cube One) spacecraft was a demonstration project and done in conjunction with the InSight lander to show the prowess of these small satellites. They were nicknamed WALL-E and EVE after the Pixar characters of the same names and were last heard from on Dec. 29 and Jan. 4, respectively.
nypost.com/2019/02/06/nasa-satellite-mysteriously-goes-silent-after-flying-past-mars/
A pair of briefcase-sized Nasa spacecraft have been lost after they flew past Mars.
The two robots – collectively known as Marco and nicknamed EVE and WALL-E – have flown so deep into space that the space agency is now unable to reach them, engineers said. It is unlikely the pair will ever be heard from again.
It has been more than a month since the robots were last heard from and they are now millions of miles beyond the red planet.
h/t Digital mix guy