InSight mission to study deep beneath the Martian surface, lands 26 Nov 2018

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Cobblers.

The truth is that Insight keeps deploying the thermal shield but the Martians keep moving it.

We know what's really happening; we're not fools you know.

 

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NASA's InSight Lander On Mars Deploys Shield for Quake-Tracking Seismometer

 

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The grapple on the shield has now been released (they are happy with the positioning of it).

 

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InSight (dark extended object, circular solar arrays fairly clear) and the SEIS equipment (small bright, white dot) spotted by MRO:

 

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The HP3 ‘mole’ (heat flow probe) was placed on the Martian surface earlier this evening.

 

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HP3 heat flux sensor, cable laid out, sitting freely on the Martian surface alongside SEIS.

 

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Update:

Engineers are still trying to understand why one of the main instruments on NASA’s InSight Mars lander is stuck just below the Martian surface.

In presentations at the 50th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference here March 18, project officials said they plan to spend the next few weeks determining why the probe on the Heat and Physical Properties Package (HP3) instrument, designed to measure the heat flow in the interior of the planet, is stuck about 30 centimeters below the surface, well short of its desired depth of three to five meters.

The probe, known as a “mole”, started to burrow into the surface Feb. 28, hammering its way into the surface. Tilman Spohn of the German space agency DLR, principal investigator for HP3, said that it appeared to reach a depth of about 30 centimeters after a four-hour hammering session. The probe, though, went no deeper during a second, five-hour hammering session March 2, after which the instrument team decided to hold off on further efforts to burrow into the surface.

Spohn said at the conference that the team speculated that the probe hit a rock shortly after burrowing into the surface that deflected it by about 15 degrees but allowed it to continue. “At about 30 centimeters depth we encountered something,” he said. “We don’t know yet if it’s a harder layer of regolith or a rock.”

The instrument team is working to diagnose the problem, he said, including seeing if the problem is with the instrument itself or the material it is trying to penetrate. One possibility is to use the lander’s robotic arm to pick up the support structure on the surface to see if the mole is sticking out, but Spohn said any such plan would need to be “carefully considered” first.

If the problem is with the Martian subsurface, he said, “I think what we can do is just continue hammering and see if we get through that layer or not.”

Engineers still studying problem with InSight heat flow probe - SpaceNews.com

 

[editor]

It's heard a tremor!

On April 6, the incredibly sensitive seismic detector the lander brought with it captured a tiny movement from the interior of the planet. The tentatively confirmed signal may have company from similar tremors measured on March 14, April 10 and April 11, but scientists aren't positive yet what triggered those incidents and can't confirm their shakes reflect interior activity.

The scientists behind the seismometer always knew they were facing a tricky challenge. The instrument had to be carefully designed if it was to succeed in picking up incredibly precise signals. It also needed protection from the wind, which is why the instrument itself is covered by a white dome, a shield that helps the instrument focus only on the interior of the planet. And because the scientists could only place a single detector, they needed to find a way to replicate the triangulation process that the seismic network on Earth permits naturally. The April 6 signal is the reward they've earned for that intricate design process.

Although the scientists are excited by the detection, it won't help them tackle the ultimate goal of the InSight mission, which is to analyze the interior structure of Mars. This particular quake was not strong enough to produce the data they need for that analysis.

Marsquake! NASA's InSight Lander Feels Its 1st Red Planet Tremor

 

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InSight took the photos on April 24 and 25 using a camera on its robotic arm. The robot started snapping sunrise pics at around 5:30 a.m. local Mars time and sunset shots about 13 hours later, NASA officials said. This evening haul included some nice imagery of gray clouds scudding across the Red Planet's sky, which were taken with a camera on the lander's deck.

Mission team members released both raw and color-corrected versions of the imagery. The color-corrected ones show how the scenes would look to the human eye.

One thing that stands out is the sun's diminutive size. Mars is considerably farther away from the sun than Earth is, so our star appears just two-thirds as big in the Red Planet's sky as it does here, NASA officials said.

The $800 million InSight mission — whose name is short for Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport — touched down near Mars' equator in November to study the planet's structure and composition.

Martian sunset

And sunrise

See a Martian Sunrise (and Sunset, Too!) in Gorgeous NASA InSight Photos