Author: Evan Gough / Source: Universe Today
NASA’s InSight lander is busy deploying its Heat Flow and Physical Properties Package (HP3) into the Martian soil and has encountered some resistance. The German Aerospace Center (DLR), who designed and built the HP3 as part of the InSight mission, has announced that the instrument has hit not one, but two rocks in the sub-surface.
For now the HP3 is in a resting phase, and it’s not clear what will happen next.The HP3 is designed to measure the heat coming from Mars’ interior and to tell us something about the source of that heat. The basic idea is to determine how Mars formed, and if it formed the same way Earth did. It’ll also tell us something about how rocky planets in general form and evolve. But to do that, it has to get underground.
The HP3 uses a hammer system to pound itself into the ground. It works in phases, spending about four hours at a time hammering into the surface. But all that hammering creates a lot of friction and heat, so the HP3 rests for a couple days while things cool down. Then it measures the heat before continuing the cycle.
“On its way into the depths, the mole seems to have hit a stone, tilted about 15 degrees and pushed it aside or passed it.”
Tilman Spohn, Principal Investigator of the HP3 experiment.
The DLR has announced in a press release that HP3 has encountered some resistance.
On February 12th the HP3 was deployed onto the Martian surface, and on the 28th the HP3 began hammering its way into the subsurface. The part of the probe that does the hammering is called the ‘mole.
’ During its first four-hour hammering sequence the mole penetrated to about 50 cm. During that time, it encountered a rock, and either passed it by or managed to push it out of the way.
“On its way into the depths, the mole seems to have hit a stone, tilted about 15 degrees and pushed it aside or passed it,” reports Tilman Spohn, Principal Investigator of the HP3 experiment.
HP3 encountered the first rock and was able to keep going. However, it encountered a second rock that impeded the mole’s penetration. “The Mole then worked its way up against another stone at an advanced depth until the planned four-hour operating time of the first sequence expired,” said…
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