NASA Rescued Its Mars Lander By Telling It To Hit Itself With A Shovel Juts Like In Whack-A-Mole

The InSight Lander of NASA is currently on a mission to study and explore Mars. However, some problems arose, forcing its operators to be creative with the solutions.

One of the digging probes designed to get under the Red Planet’s surface got stuck because the scientists did not expect Mars’ soil to be that clumpy.

The probe’s operators did try some common methods to get it out but none of those worked. And desperate time calls for desperate solutions, NASA eventually decide to thwack it with the InSight’s shovel. And it worked.

The digging probe was called “the mole” (no surprise there) and scientists expected it to drill through sand-like terrain of Mars. However, things went wrong as the soil clumped together and trapped the probe’s apparatus.

Ordering InSight’s robotic arm to land on the digging probe was extremely risky so it was a last-resort move. The mole has fragile and complex communication and power line so if the operators were not careful, they might lose it.

To successfully rescue the probe, the operators had to spend a few months in simulation before making the attempt.

The effort paid off as the mole is now working again and the scientists hope that it can successfully fulfill its duty to analyze the fluctuations of temperature inside Mars to see who similar the core of the Red Planet is to that of Earth.

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