InSight Surface Operations, 26 Nov 2018- 21 Dec 2022 Options

[James Sorenson]

Trying to right it could have had more of a success when the mole backed mostly out. I suppose they could let it back out again then try it? The hammering while pushing seems to be working for now so, I'd keep with it.

[monty python]

At the angle the mole is drilling, would it drill right under the seismometer package and would it effect seismic results?

[Quetzalcoatl]

At the angle the mole is drilling, would it drill right under the seismometer package and would it effect seismic results?

I understand the humor , but it must be said that even if the mole was more 10 km away of SEIS, it would record the hammering.

[JRehling]

I will never get tired of the anecdote that Venera 14's surface compressibility arm came down right onto its own camera lens cap, which had popped off and rolled randomly to that location.

It really seems like there is a sentient gremlin at work sometimes.

[atomoid]

..It really seems like there is a sentient gremlin at work sometimes.

[PaulH51]

Some arm/mole pressing/hammering? from the lander's IDC camera at “Homestead Hollow” on Sol 472.
Need more ICC images to try to estimate what progress was made.
Streamable version link

#SaveTheMole

[JRehling]

I found myself watching the shadow since the motion of the arm was nearly parallel to the line of sight. The shadow is more perpendicular and indicates that there was some downward motion but not much – a couple to few cm maybe.

[Quetzalcoatl]

Automatic translation of a short article in a French daily newspaper concerning the difficulties to operate SEIS (Insight mission) in this period of confinement.

Interview with Charles Yana, head of SEIS operations at the Toulouse Space Centre CNES for the Insight mission.

Journalist : Is the Insight mission continuing ?

C. Yana : Yes, everything is still OK on board. We had anticipated the containment period. Fortunately, we are not supposed to send orders to instruments outside our operational centre, SISMOC, based at the CNES space centre in Toulouse. Our teams were able to test telework in real time the day before the start of confinement. Fortunately we are in 2020 ! I can’t imagine this event even ten years ago when, for the beginnings of Curiosity, we didn’t even have a laptop! Thanks to telework and VPN links.

Journalist : How do you work now ?

C. Yana : We are each at home and we do not compromise on the quality of operations because there was no question of producing sequences of commands on a table corner. If we’re wrong, we create problems on Mars, which would be even worse than doing nothing at all. We now use team instant messaging: in the first week, we exchanged 2,000 messages, we are now at 3,000… The email equivalent would have completely drowned us! Everything went very well, but now we’re going to have to face additional difficulties.

Journalist : Which ones are they ?

The European Space Agency has put on stand-by its TGO satellite, we now have only the American Odyssey satellite which reduces our relay capabilities. So we have to operate our seismometer with less bandwidth. Our data flow comes with a lower resolution, which requires more analysis work so as not to miss a major data (dust storm, earthquake). Another concern is that if the large antennas of the Deep Space Network (based in Spain, California and Australia, they make it possible to converse with orbiters) come to know difficulties, we will be forced to do our live communications with very low throughput. One can imagine scenarios up to putting the instrument into sleep but we’re not there yet.

[Quetzalcoatl]

This is a shock!

The mole was suddenly swallowed up by a Mars (or april) fish :

mole and fish

For everyone’s understanding, in France, Italy and a few other countries, what the Americans call “the April Fool’s Day” and named April’s fish.

[PaulH51]

Action for sol 481 (April 3, 2020) Animated GIF using 6 IDC frames, I note a very slight movement on the science tether (ribbon cable), time stamps annotated on the frame. I believe there could be further images in the pipeline as there is normally a final image taken an hour or two after such events, if so I can create/add an updated animation later.
Edit animation sequence corrected

[Quetzalcoatl]

Hello and thank you, Paul,

It seems to me that according to the shadow progression the last two frames were inverted in this gif ?


Except for the shadow and the very slight trembling of the science tether, I do not perceive any significant movement of the mole or the regolith in the vicinity and I even come to doubt that during this sequence a hammering was started ?..

[PaulH51]

It seems to me that according to the shadow progression the last two frames were inverted in this gif ?

Except for the shadow and the very slight trembling of the science tether, I do not perceive any significant movement of the mole or the regolith in the vicinity and I even come to doubt that during this sequence a hammering was started ?..

Thanks for the heads-up, I've corrected the anomaly on the animation and re-uploaded the GIF in my post, the frames were assembled in the wrong order, but the timestamps were correct.

Agreed re apparent lack of hammering, maybe they just applied some small amount of pressure on the arm? There was definite movement of the scoop on sol 482, but when I last checked the images were still coming down

[PaulH51]

Very roughly assembled and resized animated GIF using Sol 489 raw frames from the Instrument Deployment Camera
Shows apparent minor progress? Dancing grains of sand in the scoop and minor collapses of regolith where the scoop was previously pressed into the pit.

[rob66]

Update from NASA Insight on Twitter

Progress being made

NASA Insight Twitter Update

[rlorenz]

I'm interested in solar energy on InSight: How many Whrs per day produced, dust factor and Tau during almost 100 sols since landing ?

Scientific Observations with the InSight Solar Arrays: Dust, Clouds and Eclipses on Mars
R. D. Lorenz et al., Earth and Space Science, in press
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi...29/2019EA000992