Watch InSight's successful landing on Mars: Difference between revisions
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This shows how it works: |
This shows how it works: |
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<youtube>7ZzXg0pU17w</youtube> |
<youtube>7ZzXg0pU17w</youtube> |
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For details see [https://mars.nasa.gov/insight/spacecraft/instruments/hp3/ understanding of how all rocky planets, including Earth, formed and evolved. |
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Taking the Temperature on Mars] |
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The thing is, in the vacuum conditions conventional drilling doesn't work. You can't use lubricants because it is a near vacuum (and anyway you'd have all the weight of lubricants to source somehow). Meanwhile the regolith is quite soft. And you want to carry as little mass with you as possible, don't want long continuous drililng shafts. Moles seem to be the best way to drill there. |
The thing is, in the vacuum conditions conventional drilling doesn't work. You can't use lubricants because it is a near vacuum (and anyway you'd have all the weight of lubricants to source somehow). Meanwhile the regolith is quite soft. And you want to carry as little mass with you as possible, don't want long continuous drililng shafts. Moles seem to be the best way to drill there. |
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In the press conferences they said that the self hammering mole can nudge its way past rocks of up to 2 cms width, can also get past rocks that present a slanting face but if it hits a flat rock face on it just has to stop. Where it landed they think it can probably reach to a depth of about 10 feet and possibly the full depth of 16 feet (5 meters). That would be a useful depth for searches for organics of past life not deteriorated by the cummulative effects of hundreds of millions to billions of years of surface cosmic radiation. |
In the press conferences they said that the self hammering mole can nudge its way past rocks of up to 2 cms width, can also get past rocks that present a slanting face but if it hits a flat rock face on it just has to stop. Where it landed they think it can probably reach to a depth of about 10 feet and possibly the full depth of 16 feet (5 meters). That would be a useful depth for searches for organics of past life not deteriorated by the cummulative effects of hundreds of millions to billions of years of surface cosmic radiation. |
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From time to time it releases pulses of heat. Then it looks at how long it takes for its own body to heat up. This gives it information about the conductivity of the surrounding soil (regolith). |
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==Aim to be dull== |
==Aim to be dull== |
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