[ad_1]
NASA has a new plan for its "mole" of Mars to dig again.
The lager InSight of the agency landed on the red planet Last November, charged with mapping the Martian interior with unprecedented details. The spacecraft is equipped with two main scientific instruments: a series of hypersensitive seismometers and the set of heat fluxes and physical properties (HP3), a digging thermal probe affectionately nicknamed "the mole".
InSight has successfully deployed both of these instruments on the Martian surface, and seismometers have already detected two marsquakes. But the the mole has stopped digging in February at a depth of only 30 cm (12 inches) – well below the prescribed distance of 3 to 5 meters (10 to 16 feet).
RELAT: Mars InSight in Photos: NASA's mission to probe the heart of the red planet
The mole may have hit a rock or the soil surrounding the thermal probe may be slippery than expected, mission team members said. (The mole needs a certain amount of rubbing with the ground to dig, otherwise, it will simply bounce off the ground.)
But it's hard to say what holds the mole because its support structure blocks the sight of the InSight instrument. The mission team therefore plans to use the robotic arm of the landing gear to lift this support structure.
"JPL and DLR engineers are working hard to assess the problem," said Lori Glaze, director of NASA's Planetary Science Division, in a statement. It referred to the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, and the German Aerospace Center, whose German acronym is DLR. (JPL manages the InSight missionand DLR built the mole.)
"Moving the support structure will help them gather more information and try at least one possible solution," added Glaze.
NASA Mars InSight's robotic arm moves on the heat flux and physical properties (HP3) package and opens the fingers of its grappling hook in this series of images from June 1, 2019.
(Image: © NASA / JPL-Caltech)
The lifting maneuver, which the team is practicing with models at the JPL, will begin on the red planet at the end of June. And InSight Managers will proceed with caution.
"Over the course of a week, the arm will lift the structure in three stages, taking pictures and sending them back so that the engineers can make sure the mole will not be removed from the ground while moving the structure. ", NASA officials wrote. in the same statement. "If it is removed from the ground, the mole can not return."
This Mars Mars Insight March NASA chart shows the position of the Heat Flow and Physical Properties Group (HP3), better known as the Mole, in early June 2019.
(Image: © NASA / JPL-Caltech / DLR)
Moving the support structure could help the team diagnose the problem and test a possible solution, said Tilman Spohn of DLR, the principal investigator of HP3.
"We plan to use InSight's robotic arm to press the ground" after the lifting maneuver, Spohn said in the same statement. "Our calculations have shown that this should add friction to the ground near the mole."
Mike Wall's book on the search for extraterrestrial life, "Over there"(Grand Central Publishing, 2018, illustrated by Karl Tate), is out now. Follow him on Twitter @michaeldwall. Follow us on twitter @Spacedotcom or Facebook.
[ad_2]
Source link