The latest disappointment on the Red Planet is the moorland saga, aka the heat probe of NASA’s InSight lander. NASA has officially released this part of the ongoing mission a month ago, after more than a year of trying to get him to work. The robot was supposed to dig a robot deep underground and collect data on the inner events at Mars. But trouble began in early 2019, when the probe was unlikely to get more than an inch underground. Engineers on Earth tried a few strategies to induce movement, including pushing it down with the robotic arm of the ruler. Of course, the soil would not cooperate. Where the team hoped to find a loose regolith, they ran against “duricrust,” a thick, cement-like material. “We gave him everything we have, but Mars and our brave mole are irrelevant.” said the project’s lead researcher, Tilman Spohn, in January 2021. “Fortunately, we have learned a great deal that will benefit future missions that seek to dig into the subtext.”
All of these sad memories make the successes even sweeter, and we look forward to all the new science coming from the Perseverance rover.