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posted by martyb on Thursday March 19 2020, @04:56AM   Printer-friendly
from the smack-a-mole dept.

For those tracking the twisting tale of the NASA Mars InSight Lander's plucky heat probe nicknamed 'the mole' - there is some good news! NASA reports:

A bit of good news from #Mars: our new approach of using the robotic arm to push the mole appears to be working! The teams @NASAJPL/@DLR_en are excited to see the images and plan to continue this approach over the next few weeks. 💪 #SaveTheMole

FAQ: https://t.co/wnhp7c1gPT pic.twitter.com/5wYyn7IwVo
— NASA InSight (@NASAInSight) March 13, 2020

The mole is a 16-inch-long (40-centimeter) spike equipped with an internal hammering mechanism that relies on friction from the soil to help it dig down. The likely reason for its trouble digging is that the fine dry regolith, which is supposed to provide friction to keep the mole from bouncing up on each strike has not been doing so, causing the mole to work its way up and almost out of its hole.

By pushing down on the rod with a shovel-like sampling instrument, NASA is finally making progress getting the mole to dig again.

Direct link to the mission blog: https://www.dlr.de/blogs/en/all-blog-posts/The-InSight-mission-logbook.aspx.

Previously:
Mashing May Mitigate Mars Mole Meandering
More Mars Mole Mission Misfortune
Mars Mole Mission Rues Resistanceless Regolith
NASA to Jack up Insight Lander to Assess Non-Penetrating Probe
InSight Impinges Insufficiently in Site


Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 19 2020, @06:40AM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 19 2020, @06:40AM (#973082)

    But then I guess TFHeadline was meant to carpture eyeballs. Got them! Congrats!!! So what do we do now?

  • (Score: 5, Funny) by janrinok on Thursday March 19 2020, @10:07AM (1 child)

    by janrinok (52) Subscriber Badge on Thursday March 19 2020, @10:07AM (#973112) Journal

    Firstly, the headline is completely accurate, and is a paraphrasing of the subtitle used on the NASA release itself, albeit slightly humorous. But if you haven't RTFA you wouldn't know that, would you?

    Secondly, if space exploration isn't your particular interest then you should have spotted the clue in the title - "NASA". Just hang on, another story will come along in a while.

    So what do we do now?

    Try to think the problem through - what would you do to resolve it? We don't spoon feed people on this site, our aim is to encourage intelligent discussion. It seems that in this particular instance, we failed.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 19 2020, @03:20PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 19 2020, @03:20PM (#973192)

      OK I made a plan!

      1. Don't RTFA!
      2. FIRST POST!
      3. ...!
      4. OMG I GOT FIRST POST!!!

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 19 2020, @04:53PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 19 2020, @04:53PM (#973242)

    Add hammer to next lander.