The drilling rig of InSight has difficulty drilling the ground of Mars

NASA’s InSight lander landed on Mars in November 2018 and its goal is to make us understand more about the Red Planet subsoil. It has two main instruments, an seismometer and a heat drill which was gracefully named mole. The mole must pierce the surface of Mars and give us information about the temperature in its subsoil.

However, not everything goes according to schedule . It started digging in late February and has not been able to exceed 35 cm since it was designed to reach 5 meters. Indeed, the weekend came off the ground without anyone expecting it, leaving NASA scientists to wonder. They think the ground is to blame for the situation, since instead of falling around the drill evenly, offering friction to continue digging deeper, it leaves gaps and the instrument simply moves up and down in one spot.

NASA scientists have decided to use InSight’s robotic arm to push the drill, but at the weekend the drill came out of its hole and the NASA team is looking for the right way to proceed with the mission.