NASA's InSight lander set its heat probe, called the Heat and Physical Properties Package (HP3), on the Martian surface on Feb. 12, 2019. (Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/DLR)
Houston, we have a problem.
NASA said on Tuesday that its Mars InSight lander has encountered some problems and has stopped digging, likely due to hitting a rock or some gravel. The government space agency said the heat probe, also known as a "mole," on the $828 million lander is at a 15-degree tilt and no "significant progress" was seen after a second bout of hammering on March 2.
"The team has decided to pause the hammering for now to allow the situation to be analyzed more closely and jointly come up with strategies for overcoming the obstacle," HP3 Principal Investigator Tilman Spohn of DLR wrote in a blog post.
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The lander's probe first started hammering into the soil on Feb. 28 and got approximately three-fourths of the way out of its housing before it stopped.
NASA added that the probe itself is functioning as expected. InSight (Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport) will dig deeper into the planet than anything that's come before, as it conducts its mission of measuring heat escaping from Mars' interior to educate researchers further about its history.
"The team will be conducting further heating tests this week to measure the thermal conductivity of the upper surface," NASA JPL said in the statement.
"They will also use a radiometer on InSight's deck to measure temperature changes on the surface. Mars' moon Phobos will pass in front of the Sun several times this week; like a cloud passing overhead, the eclipse will darken and cool the ground around InSight," the agency continued.
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InSight, which went through "seven minutes of terror" to get to the Red Planet, touched down on the Martian surface on Nov. 26, ending a journey that covered more than 300 million miles.