Tag Archives: HP3

InSight update by Emily Lakdawalla, The Planetary Society

A couple more tiny quakes and heat probe progress: It’s been 3 months since my last check-in with the InSight mission. In that time, they’ve detected a few more very small Marsquakes, including the largest yet, coming in at a … Continue reading

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InSight: Uncovering ‘the Mole’

Behold the “mole”: The heat-sensing spike that NASA’s InSight lander deployed on the Martian surface is now visible. Last week, the spacecraft’s robotic arm successfully removed the support structure of the mole, which has been unable to dig, and placed … Continue reading

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InSight: Getting the Mole moving again

Scientists and engineers have a new plan for getting NASA InSight’s heat probe, also known as the “mole,” digging again on Mars. Part of an instrument called the Heat Flow and Physical Properties Package (HP3), the mole is a self-hammering … Continue reading

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InSight: More testing for the ‘mole’

Updated at 5 p.m. PDT (8 p.m. EDT) on April 11: InSight’s Heat and Physical Properties Package (HP3) instrument completed a new round of diagnostic hammering into the Martian surface on March 26, 2019, while the spacecraft’s seismometer listened in. … Continue reading

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InSight: Lander’s ‘mole’ pauses digging

NASA’s Mars InSight lander has a probe designed to dig up to 16 feet (5 meters) below the surface and measure heat coming from inside the planet. After beginning to hammer itself into the soil on Thursday, Feb. 28, the … Continue reading

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InSight update, Sol 92, by Emily Lakdawalla, The Planetary Society

The mole did hit a rock. Mars could’ve given us a break, but it didn’t. The HP3 mole started hammering itself today, and almost immediately (after just 5 minutes) appears to have encountered a rock. After four hours of hammering, it … Continue reading

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InSight update, Sols 43-83, by Emily Lakdawalla, The Planetary Society

Now that InSight has finished placing both science instruments and the wind cover, the arm’s required work is done and the science team can set about commissioning their instruments. For the heat probe instrument, commissioning involves driving its instrumented “mole” … Continue reading

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InSight deploys heat flow package

NASA’s InSight lander has placed its second instrument on the Martian surface. New images confirm that the Heat Flow and Physical Properties Package, or HP3, was successfully deployed on Feb. 12 about 3 feet (1 meter) from InSight’s seismometer, which … Continue reading

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InSight: First selfie

NASA’s InSight lander isn’t camera-shy. The spacecraft used a camera on its robotic arm to take its first selfie – a mosaic made up of 11 images. This is the same imaging process used by NASA’s Curiosity rover mission, in … Continue reading

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InSight: New home ‘a large sandbox’

With InSight safely on the surface of Mars, the mission team at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, is busy learning more about the spacecraft’s landing site. They knew when InSight landed on Nov. 26 that the spacecraft had … Continue reading

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