After a six-month break, the Mars mole is digging again: the device developed in Germany has moved a good two centimeters further down the last ten days. That was "good news," said the German Aerospace Center (DLR) on Friday in Cologne.
The device called HP3, designed to measure the heat flow in the interior of the Red Planet and penetrate five meters deep into the Martian soil. But it was stuck for more than half a year in just 30 centimeters deep.
The DLR scientists suspected that the mole on the side walls of the already dug hole no longer found any support and therefore hopped on the spot, rather than continue to drill down. Therefore, the Mars mole should be pressed with the blade of a robot arm against the side wall to give him the necessary support.
With blade pressure deeper into the Martian rock
The plan was apparently on and the mole could hammer down piece by piece. For the two inches, a total of 220 hammer blows were necessary. Now the mole should continue to move with the help of the lateral blade pressure - to below the surface of Mars. Then you have to wait and see if he can get ahead alone, says the DLR.
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The device had landed in November 2018 aboard the land apparatus "Insight" on Mars. After entering the Martian atmosphere, the robot had been lowered in an extremely complicated maneuver using rockets and a parachute. Its landing site is located in the plain Elysium Planitia north of the Martian equator.
Landings on Mars are considered extremely difficult - only about 40 percent of all previously launched worldwide Mars missions were successful according to NASA. Last Nasa 2012 had brought the rover "Curiosity" successfully on Mars. Unlike "Curiosity", the new Mars robot always stays in roughly the same position during its mission.
