It was looking grim for NASA's Mars InSight mission back at the beginning of October. But now,?? ??? ?? things seem to have turned around.
The InSight lander had originally been sent to the Red Planet with the goal of drilling some 16 feet into the Martian terrain, to measure heat beneath the surface. But after only 14 inches of progress, there was a problem: the "mole" (aka drill with a built-in heat probe) would go no further.
It got stuck in Feb. 2019 and remained that way until early October, when NASA came up with a new plan. The idea was to use the InSight lander's metal scoop to refill the 14-inch hole and then act as a support for the mole to press up against as it tunneled down.
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The whole scheme was based on an assumption that the below-ground hold-up was heavily clumped together soil, rather than rock. The scoop, then, would help guide the mole along by stopping it from bouncing around as it dug deeper. The pressure would be forced downward instead, which NASA hoped would break through the tough stretch of soil.
It seems to have worked, with NASA confirming that the mole is once again on the move. In the week leading to Oct. 17, the mole dug down an additional two centimeters. That might not sound like a lot, but NASA calls the progress "significant."
"Since Oct. 8, 2019, the mole has hammered 220 times over three separate occasions," NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Andrew Good wrote in a post on the agency's website. "Images sent down from the spacecraft's cameras have shown the mole gradually progressing into the ground. It will take more time — and hammering — for the team to see how far the mole can go."
The big takeaway from even this small amount of progress is that the hold-up was indeed tightly packed soil rather than rock, which would have halted the mole completely and likely doomed this aspect of InSight's mission. It's not a total success just yet, but the work is at least moving forward.
The minds at NASA are already working on additional strategies for coaxing an uncooperative mole to start moving again. If progress halts again, one idea involves piling dirt on top of the mole itself, which would have the effect of "adding mass to resist the mole's recoil."
SEE ALSO: NASA created a free 'CGI moon kit' for artistsAnother approach would involve using the scoop to press down on the top of the mole and drive it in further, though that's not without its risks. The mole is connected to the InSight lander by a "sensitive tether," which provides power and moves data.
Of course, any progress on a mission that's been stalled since the start of the year is good news for NASA. We'll just have to wait and see if this small amount of progress translates into useful data.