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Diggerland comes to Mars as boffins battle to save InSight's mole

lglethal Silver badge
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Unfortunately, it's not quite that simple, the tether that connects the Mole to the lander comes out of the rear side of the Mole and is a thin flat cable made of Kapton (and wires). So you have to be very careful not to press down on that with the end of the arm. You're also doing this based on camera images taken from the Lander or high up on the arm. So you need to be very precise with what your doing.

In the end the team have decided to go with "pinning" the Mole to the side of the hole, so that at least part of the Mole has good solid contact with the hole wall (and the arm will provide some friction on the other side). If you want full details check out the HP³ Blog (https://www.dlr.de/blogs/en/all-blog-posts/The-InSight-mission-logbook.aspx). The Hammering will restart soon, so fingers crossed!

(from an ex HP³ Team member..)

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