InSight Surface Operations, 26 Nov 2018- 21 Dec 2022 |
InSight Surface Operations, 26 Nov 2018- 21 Dec 2022 |
Nov 26 2018, 08:20 PM
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#1
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Merciless Robot Group: Admin Posts: 8785 Joined: 8-December 05 From: Los Angeles Member No.: 602 |
Congratulations to the InSight team on a successful landing! We'll discuss the remainder of the mission here.
-------------------- A few will take this knowledge and use this power of a dream realized as a force for change, an impetus for further discovery to make less ancient dreams real.
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Sep 27 2020, 03:06 AM
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#2
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 2346 Joined: 7-December 12 Member No.: 6780 |
If we believe that assumption, then we have two plausible scenarios:
- Either there is just a pebble at the tip of the mole, or - the mole is hitting bedrock. In both cases, the mole needs to find a way to return to partially inelastic collisions to make any significant progress. In the case of a pebble, it may either be possible to destroy it or to work around it. The loss of surface material might hint towards a pebble sinking into other regolith and leaving a void. In the case of bedrock there may exist two options: - Find a fracture or a soft fracture fill, or - find a way to reduce elastic bouncing when hitting hard bedrock, -- either by a larger force of the scoop pushing the mole, the risk of which needs to be assessed thoroughly by the mission engineers, or -- by fixing the mole to a larger mass, which is looking even more challenging to me, since sand probably won't do it. By the images, I'm inclined to presume that they are trying to work with a larger force of the scoop, but very cautiously at the same time in order to reduce the risk of damage. |
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