NASA gives up trying to burrow under Mars surface with ‘mole’ probe

The NASA Insight lander’s heat probe, also known as the mole, was unable to burrow into the surface of Mars

NASA/JPL-Caltech

NASA’s “mole” on Mars has failed. After nearly two years of attempting to dig the InSight lander’s heat probe – nicknamed the mole – into the Red Planet’s surface, engineers have finally given up.

The InSight lander arrived on Mars in November 2018. Its main purpose is to study the planet’s deep interior in order to help us understand the history of the solar system’s rocky worlds. The lander has three main instruments to help it do that: a seismometer to catch vibrations travelling through the ground, a radio to precisely measure Mars’s rotation and learn more about its metal core and a setup called the Heat Flow and Physical Properties Package (HP3) to measure the heat flowing out of the planet’s centre.

The mole is a key part of HP3 and is a sort of self-hammering nail designed to burrow about 5 metres under the ground, deeper than any human-made device has dug on any rocky planet, moon or asteroid before. However, once the mole started its ill-fated burrowing attempts, the soil proved to be unexpectedly clumpy, so it didn’t provide the instrument with the friction it needed in order to dig.

Advertisement


The scientists and engineers working on the mission tried everything they could think of to get the mole into the ground, even pressing down on it with the scoop on InSight’s robotic arm. Nothing worked, so after a final attempt on 9 January, the team has now ended its efforts.

“We’ve given it everything we’ve got, but Mars and our heroic mole remain incompatible,” said Tilman Spohn at the German Aerospace Center, the leader of the HP3 team, in a press release. “Fortunately, we’ve learned a lot that will benefit future missions that attempt to dig into the subsurface.” Researchers on future missions will understand the Martian soil better thanks to the many attempts to bury the mole.

While that particular instrument didn’t work, InSight’s other tools are performing well. The seismometer has already recorded nearly 500 marsquakes, and NASA has extended the mission until December 2022.

Sign up to our free Launchpad newsletter for a voyage across the galaxy and beyond, every Friday

More on these topics:

Speak Your Mind

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here

Get in Touch

350FansLike
100FollowersFollow
281FollowersFollow
150FollowersFollow

Recommend for You

Oh hi there 👋
It’s nice to meet you.

Subscribe and receive our weekly newsletter packed with awesome articles that really matters to you!

We don’t spam! Read our privacy policy for more info.

You might also like

How to See the World’s Reflection From a Bag...

However, some experts caution that future versions of the technology are ripe for abuse....

‘Triple star’ discovery could revolutionize understanding of stellar evolution

A ground-breaking new discovery by University of Leeds scientists could transform the way astronomers...