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Updated information on the Mars Insight Lander's Mole Mission.
As previously reported, the burrowing instrument on the Mars Insight Lander dubbed the 'mole' ran into trouble back in February.
Various efforts since, including most recently applying pressure to the instrument with the lander's arm scoop, were undertaken to help the little instrument out, and the most recent effort seemed to be succeeding. The lander managed another 3cm of progress! indicating that it had not encountered an impenetrable rock layer after all.
Sadly for the little spade that should, over the weekend the NASA InSight team tweeted the following discouraging news:
"Mars continues to surprise us. While digging this weekend the mole backed about halfway out of the ground. Preliminary assessment points to unexpected soil properties as the main reason. Team looking at next steps.
The stick like probe is supposed to dig its way down to a depth of about 5 meters and take temperature readings.
An image of the issue is here.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 30 2019, @04:31AM (1 child)
Mars soil isn't dry. This was one of the most important discoveries by Curiosity. It's also something that "The Martian" book/film accidentally got very wrong. Need water? Go grab a lump of soil and dehydrate it. In general the soil is quite moist. You're looking at ~2 pints of water per cubic foot of soil. Some random source [theguardian.com] so it's not just an AC saying this.
But as always this just emphasizes the need for men on Mars. All the science we've achieved with decades of these probes, rovers, and landers could have been achieved in, literally, a matter of days by a single scientist on the surface.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 30 2019, @08:34PM
Once we know enough to help him survive a matter of days ...
Hmm, how much support infrastructure is required to get a good days worth of "science" out of a scientist? You know, so they're not spending most of their time growing potatoes or making compost...