NASA’s InSight Flexes Its Arm While Its ‘Mole’ Hits Pause – Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Now that the lander’s robotic arm has helped the mole get underground, it will resume science activities that have been on hold.
NASA’s InSight lander has been using its robotic arm to
help the heat probe known as the “mole” burrow into Mars. The mission is providing the first look at the
Red Planet’s deep interior to reveal details
about the formation of Mars and, ultimately, all rocky planets, including
Earth.
Akin to a 16-inch-long (40-centimeter-long) pile driver, the self-hammering
mole has experienced difficulty getting into the Martian soil since February
2019. It’s mostly buried now, thanks to recent efforts to push
down on the mole with the scoop on the end of the robotic arm. But whether
it will be able to dig deep enough – at least 10 feet (3 meters) – to get an
accurate temperature reading of the planet remains to be seen. Images taken by InSight during a Saturday, June 20,
hammering session show bits of soil jostling within the scoop – possible
evidence that the mole had begun bouncing in place, knocking the bottom of the
scoop.
While the campaign to save the
mole continues, the arm will be used to help carry out other science and
engineering work. Here’s what you can expect in the months ahead from the
mission, which is led by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern
California.
What’s next for the mole?
The mole is part of an
instrument called the Heat Flow and Physical
Properties Package, or HP3,
that the German Aerospace Center (DLR) provided NASA. While the scoop on the
end of InSight’s arm has blocked the mole from backing out
of its pit again, it also blocks the arm’s
camera from seeing the mole and the pit that has formed around it. Over the
next few weeks, the team will move the arm out of the way to better assess how
the soil and mole are interacting.
The mole needs friction from
soil in order to burrow. Ironically, loose soil provides that friction as it collapses
around the mole. But the soil beneath InSight has proven to be cement-like
duricrust, with dirt granules that stick together. As a result, recoil from the
mole’s self-hammering action causes it to bounce in place. So the team’s next
moves may be to provide that friction by scraping or chopping nearby soil to
move it into the pit it’s in.
More thoughts about the
mole’s recent progress can be found on a blog written
by HP3’s principal investigator, Tilman Spohn of DLR.
What’s next for InSight’s arm?
InSight landed on Mars on Nov. 26, 2018. Its robotic arm subsequently
set HP3, a seismometer and the seismometer’s Wind and Thermal Shield
on to the planet’s surface. While the arm has been key to helping the mole, scientists
and engineers are eager to use the arm’s camera to pan over InSight’s solar
panels, something they haven’t done since July 17, 2019.
It’s the dusty season on Mars, and the panels are likely coated
with a fine layer of reddish-brown particles. Estimating how much dust is on
the solar panels will let engineers better understand InSight’s daily power
supply.
Scientists also want to resume using the arm to spot meteors
streaking across the night sky, as they did earlier in the mission. Doing so
could help them predict how often meteors strike this part of the planet. They
could also cross-check to see whether data from InSight’s seismometer reveals a
meteor impact on Mars shortly afterward.
What’s next for the
seismometer?
InSight’s seismometer, called the Seismic Experiment for
Interior Structure (SEIS), detected
its first marsquake nearly three months after starting its measurements in
January 2019. By the fall of 2019, it was detecting a potential quake or two per
day. While SEIS has detected more than 480 seismic signals overall, the rate
has dropped to less than one per week.
This rate change is tied to seasonal variations of
atmospheric turbulence, which creates noise that covers up the tiny quake
signals. Despite the protective Wind and Thermal Shield, SEIS is sensitive
enough that shaking from the wind hitting the shield can make quakes harder to
isolate.
More About InSight
JPL manages InSight for NASA’s
Science Mission Directorate. InSight is part of NASA’s Discovery Program,
managed by the agency’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.
Lockheed Martin Space in Denver built the InSight spacecraft, including its
cruise stage and lander, and supports spacecraft operations for the mission.
A number of European partners,
including France’s Centre National d’Études Spatiales (CNES) and the German
Aerospace Center (DLR), are supporting the InSight mission. CNES provided the
Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure (SEIS) instrument to NASA, with the principal investigator at
IPGP (Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris). Significant contributions for
SEIS came from IPGP; the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research (MPS)
in Germany; the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zurich) in
Switzerland; Imperial College London and Oxford University in the United
Kingdom; and JPL. DLR provided the Heat Flow and Physical Properties Package (HP3)
instrument, with significant contributions from the Space Research Center (CBK)
of the Polish Academy of Sciences and Astronika in Poland. Spain’s Centro de
Astrobiología (CAB) supplied the temperature and wind sensors.
News Media Contact
Andrew GoodJet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, [email protected] Johnson / Grey HautaluomaNASA Headquarters, Washington202-672-4780 / [email protected] / [email protected]
2020-124

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