NASA announces the death of the “mole” drilled by the Mars Insight lander

Here to All the brave machines that have been entangled with Mars And finally lost. Good-bye, Chance. Godspeed, Beagle 2. We Barely Knew You, Schiaparelli. Now we must bid farewell to the “mole” portion of NASA’s Insight mission.

The landing craft itself is good, healthy, and still being studied SwampsBut the Mole’s efforts to explore the Red Planet have faltered every step of the way. Thursday, NASA announced the end of the mole’s flight.

The mole is the hiding part of the landing craft Heat flow package and physical properties (HP3), an instrument designed to drill down into and measure the internal temperature of Mars, like a doctor doing a scan. Mars was not willing sick.

InSight landed in late 2018 and we’ve been following the experiences and troubles of the mole since it was first published in early 2019. The mole – built by the German Space Center (DLR) – behaved like a small pile driver using a hammer action to descend. But Mars did not have it. The The mole kept retracting from the hole Instead of digging.

“We gave it our all, but Mars and our hero body are still incompatible,” HP3 lead investigator, Tillman Spawn of DLR, said. “Fortunately, we learned a lot that will benefit future missions trying to dig into the ground.”

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NASA and DLR have tried all kinds of tricks, from squeezing the mole with an InSight arm to sweeping the soil on it. The mole team made a final attempt to gain some ground last weekend, but unexpected soil properties in the InSight Landing Zone again proved to be too great. The lumpy soil texture meant the mole couldn’t friction enough to dig it.

Time to greet the mole and his team and prowess in the mission. Scientists have learned about the soil in this region of Mars and developed new and sophisticated ways to use the robotic arm of InSight. This knowledge will fuel future Mars exploration expeditions.

This has been a bittersweet week for NASA and the Mars Landing Insight Team. But the good news is NASA officially extended the InSight science mission Until December 2022. The mole has died. Long live InSight.

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