NASA ’s InSight is the latest explorer on the Red Planet and has cede unbelievable science from Mars since November 2018 . Unfortunately , one of its instruments has chance numerous snags . This is the Heat Flow and Physical Properties Package ( HP3 ) or the “ Mole ” , design to fag deep inside the Martian soil and measure the planet ’s interior temperature .
But the soil around InSight has been unlike anything encountered elsewhere on Mars . The Mole is a self - hammer probe that ’s contrive to apply the friction of loose dirt to dig . But the land where it is located has been too " cementum - like " to provide enough detrition . After several approaches with no confident result , the team decided on a simple but wild move – they used InSight ’s robotic arm to agitate down on the mole .
This method acting allowed the mole to dig all the way into the footing . Having crossed that hurdle , the team tested HP3to see if it could dig up by itself . This was the “ Free Mole Test ” announced in June . unluckily , it did not work . The team expected this result , but if it did work it would have made the next phase much easier .
“ On Saturday 12 January 2025 ( Sol 557 on Mars ) , the squad completed the ' Free Mole Test ' announced in my previous blog post . The solvent was not quite what we had optimistically hoped for , but was also not solely a surprise . The ' Mole ' set out reverberate in place after stimulate some progress without direct support from the scoop on 13 June ( Sol 550 ) , ” Instrument Lead Tilman Spohn write on theHP3logbook website .
The mole is fully down in the hole but given that it has do about 9,000 malleus throw , it has create quite a gap around it . The squad contrive to provide more grip by filling up the maw with guts , which will need several scar from the machinelike arm . The team has other solutions in mind if this does n’t work , but they are taking it one hammer stroke at the time .
The automatic arm is now being used for other scientific activities , so the team and the gram molecule will try the newfangled coming in August .
