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John O | February 2019

NASA instrument lands on Mars ready to measure the temperature of the planet


By Josh Perry, Editor
[email protected]

 

The NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) at the California Institute of Technology (Pasadena, Calif.) recently announced that the InSight lander has placed its second test instrument, the Heat Flow and Physical Properties Package (HP3), on the surface of Mars on Feb. 12.

 


NASA's InSight lander set its heat probe, called the Heat and Physical Properties Package (HP3), on the Martian surface on Feb. 12, 2019. (NASA/JPL-Caltech/DLR)

 

“HPlooks a bit like an automobile jack but with a vertical metal tube up front to hold the 16-inch-long (40-centimeter-long) mole,” the report described. “A tether connects HP3's support structure to the lander, while a tether attached to the top of the mole features heat sensors to measure the temperature of the Martian subsurface. Meanwhile, heat sensors in the mole itself will measure the soil's thermal conductivity - how easily heat moves through the subsurface.”

 

The HP3 includes a self-hammering spike to dig up to 16 feet below the Martian surface, stopping every 19 inches to measure the thermal conductivity of the soil. The process takes time because the sensor will have to stop for two days to allow the heat from the friction of digging to dissipate. Once it has cooled, the sensor will be heated by 50°F over 24 hours, and the sensors will provide data on how long that takes.

 

“If the mole encounters a large rock before reaching at least 10 feet (3 meters) down, the team will need a full Martian year (two Earth years) to filter noise out of their data,” according to JPL. “This is one reason the team carefully selected a landing site with few rocks and why it spent weeks choosing where to place the instrument.”

 

A scientist explained in the announcement that HP3 weighs less than a pair of shoes and uses less power than a router, but will still dig deeper than any previous effort. Prior to HP3, the deepest that a probe dug into the Martian surface was Viking 1’s 8.6 inches.

 

For more information about the InSight mission, visit https://mars.nasa.gov/insight.

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