[X] My Assistant

[elakdawalla]

Bruce Banerdt told me there was a 50% chance they'd have to do that. I'm talking to him this afternoon and should have an update for you all tomorrowish.

[PaulH51]

You think there is an issue? I don't know what the change is supposed to be/do mechanically.

Animating the IDC and ICC images taken before and after the load shunt assembly (LSA) was released shows the plates have moved, but still appear to be in contact, it looks to me that the plates have just rotated a little (clockwise). I've not seen specs, but one would think the plates needed to be separated to permit the tether service loop to be effective at reducing the transmission of any vibration along the stack of 5 semi rigid ribbon cables (umbilical tether) into SEIS. There is a recent YouTube video of the engineering team practicing deployment of the instrument (filmed at JPL) that showed them using the scoop on the end of the robotic arm to gently pull the pin on top of the tether pinning mass gently away from SEIS, that would open the plates and thus permit the service loop to do its job. Then we can look forward to seeing the deployment of the WTS

[AndyG]

actual chain mail with a quite artfully designed platelet structure at that, to be fitted to our little seismometer battling dust devils on the planet of war, amazing!

This Medieval Re-enactor pedant writes...

Is it not more like lorica squamata than maille?

Andy

[PaulH51]

Is it not more like lorica squamata than maille?

It has both
See attached that I extracted from the SEIS page. The Chain Mail is behind and below the 'Lorica Squamata'. I simply added the annotations.

[AndyG]

Oh! Gotcha! That's excellent!

[Bill]

Bruce Banerdt told me there was a 50% chance they'd have to do that. I'm talking to him this afternoon and should have an update for you all tomorrowish.

You have the answer by Gabriel PONT @Gaby65 (SEIS Instrument Manager @CNES) on twitter :

"Le LSA (Load Shunt Assembly) de #Seissurmars a été ouvert avec succès. [...] La prochaine étape va terminer le boulot en ajustant la position du tether avec le bras de #insight."

"The Load Shunt Assembly (LSA) of #Seissurmars has been successfully opened. [...] The next step will finish the job by adjusting the position of the tether with the #insight arm."

[PaulH51]

The SEIS news page has just been updated (dated January 8, 2019)

French version LINK

As earlier, the English button on the news page only takes you to the SEIS front page, so here is a link to the Google translated version page.

English via Google translate LINK

[monty python]

Wonderful insight on this. thank you.

[Paolo]

Wonderful insight on this.

pun intended?

[fredk]

Stereo view of SEIS and cable from sol 42. Cross-eyed:

Anaglyph:

[elakdawalla]

An interesting little factoid Bruce just told me that won't make it in to my update today:

All those sky images show that we were unsuccessful in stowing the grapple (for better imaging). This is normal, we frequently miss the “grab” in the Testbed.

[neo56]

Panorama of the landing site (sol 14) with an extra sky:

[PaulH51]

On Sol 44 the SEIS instrument lowered itself as close as possible to the ground using its motorised legs.
This simple animated GIF uses 2 processed ICC images from sols 42 and 44 that show before and after it was lowered.

IDC images from sol 44 show what looks like another unsuccessful grapple stowage attempt (Third time is usually a charm)
Thanks to @LarsTheWanderer (Twitter) who spotted this as I missed it

[PaulH51]

No prize on sol 46 (January 13).
The team likely need a few more coins to practice

raw images: Link

[bobik]

So what's the rational behind the slit on the small ball, for it seems that without it the ball would have slipped through?