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You may recall that back in November, NASA's Insight lander began drilling down into the surface of Mars hoping to reach a depth of 16 feet (5 meters) with an instrument affectionately dubbed "The Mole"
NASA scientists now have a plan to hopefully determine the cause of the Lander's shallow shoveling.
Although the mission went well, at the last moment the heat probe only managed to reach a depth of 13cm before progress stalled.
There are a couple of theories for what is causing this.
1) The probe may have simply hit a rock.
2) The soil around the heat probe may be too 'slick'. "(The mole needs a certain amount of soil friction to dig; otherwise, it will simply bounce in place.)"
Unfortunately right now, it is simply impossible to be sure. This is because the Insight Lander's support structure blocks the onboard camera's view of the instrument.
So, the mission team plans to use the lander's robotic arm to lift that support structure out of the way.
According to Lori Glaze, director of NASA's Planetary Science Division, this will allow the scientists to "gather more information and try at least one solution."
The lifting maneuver, which the team has been practicing with mock-ups at JPL, will begin on the Red Planet in late June. And InSight's handlers will proceed carefully.
"Over the course of a week, the arm will lift the structure in three steps, taking images and returning them so that engineers can make sure the mole isn't being pulled out of the ground while the structure is moved," NASA officials wrote in the same statement. "If removed from the soil, the mole can't go back in."
The investigation process itself will add friction to the soil near the mole according to Tilman Spohn of the German Aerospace Center which built the mole.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 06 2019, @03:09PM (5 children)
Is this how we drill on Earth? No? Why would it work on Mars?
You can drill as we do here on Earth. The drilling mud might not be water-based, but the concept works fine.
Plain old excavation works too. They weren't going all that deep. Hire a bulldozer operator, give him a VR setup, practice with 20 minutes of lag, and there you go.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by ikanreed on Thursday June 06 2019, @03:40PM (3 children)
The magic difference is mass.
A solid steel high mass drill bit driven by a large electric motor with a huge battery is what "works on earth". But every kilogram we want to put on mars requires more fuel on the next skycrane dropping it on mars to decelerate it. And every kilogram of fuel on the skycrane(and drill) requires fuel for executing the delta-v between earth orbit and mars orbit. And every kilogram of orbit control thrust fuel(and skycrane fuel, and drill) needs fuel on the transition stage of the rocket. And you guessed it, every kilogram of fuel on the transition stage(and orbit control fuel, and skycrane fuel, and drill mass) requires more fuel on the takeoff stage of the rocket. The cost for making slightly more durable components is quite literally astronomical.
It's not rocket science.
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Thursday June 06 2019, @05:27PM
Well, it's a little rocket science... Does that make you a little rocket man?
And while I'm on a roll, what I want to know is if they're going to use a High Jack or a Lo Jack? Hopefully they already have the Lo Jack part ready. If they're going to use a High Jack then maybe we should have deployed facial recognition software with them to Mars. TSA! Your security on Earth and Beyond!
We now return you to your regular schizophrenia....
This sig for rent.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Thursday June 06 2019, @06:56PM (1 child)
And if it doesn't work, all of that is wasted. A soil drill that can be defeated by hitting a rock, and which cannot be retracted and redeployed elsewhere is not a robust design.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 07 2019, @03:18AM
It's all you could afford, stop frotting at your mouth
(Score: 2) by driverless on Friday June 07 2019, @02:49AM
3) The penetration of Mars by an alien probe was entirely non-consensual, and was stopped before it went too far. The arraignment hearing is next month.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 06 2019, @07:25PM (1 child)
Uh huh huh huh.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 06 2019, @09:04PM
The mole needs a certain amount of friction otherwise it will simply bounce in place. What’s more they don’t have a clear camera view, obviously important. And they don’t want to pull all the way out or they’ll have trouble getting it back in.
Just be thankful they’re not doing this on Uranus
(Score: 2) by Username on Thursday June 06 2019, @10:49PM (3 children)
Why not? This all seems like a huge waste of time and money. A device that only works once, with no backup. How do these people not plan for possible contingencies? Couldn't even put a little winch on it to have a redo. Now we're paying them, probably millions, to lift a leg of a platform to see a hole. A hole which cannot go any deeper, even if they do see it.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday June 07 2019, @12:15AM (2 children)
BFR: land astronauts on Mars with as many heavy drills as you want.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 07 2019, @03:31AM (1 child)
If Musk is such a hero, why doesn't he take his boring company on Mars to dig some tunnels?
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday June 07 2019, @04:01AM
NAsA's Planetary Protection Police, in cahoots with the Martians, will arrest Musk and destroy his rockets.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]