HP3 – Experiment on InSight Mission Wrap-up Operations on Mars

HP3 – the Heat Flow and Physical Properties Package – is an experiment package on-board the NASA Mars Mission InSight (Interior Exploration Using Seismic Investigation, Geodesy, and Heat Transport) to investigate the interior structure of Mars. InSight waslaunched on May 5th, 2018, landed successfully on Mars on November 26th, 2018, and is now operating successfully for more than one Martian year. The main science experiments of the InSight mission are a seismometer (SEIS), the HP3 heat flow probe and the Rotation and Interior Structure Experiment (RISE). An Auxciliary Payload Sensor Suite (APSS) consisting of atmospheric pressure, wind and temperature sensors as well as a magnetometer complement the payload. After landing on Mars the seismometer and HP3 were deployed to the Martian surface by the robotic arm of the lander. HP3 is the contribution of DLR (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt e.V., Germany) to the InSight mission. It is designed to determine the geothermal heat flux by emplacing a suit of temperature sensors to a maximum depth of 5 m, by means of a mechanical hammering mechanism. HP3 is designed to measure the thermal conductivity as function of depth during the hammering phase, and to monitor the thermal profile of the subsurface for a full Martian year

HP³ - Experiment on InSight Mission - Operations on Mars

HP3 – the Heat Flow and Physical Properties Package – is an experiment package on-board the NASA Mars Mission InSight (Interior Exploration Using Seismic Investigation, Geodesy, and Heat Transport). The InSight Mission investigates the interior structure of Mars using seismological and geodetical measurements and quantifies the planetary heat budget by measuring the surface planetary heat flow. InSight was launched on the 5th May 2018 and landed successfully on Mars on the 26th November 2018 and is now operating on Mars successfully for more than one Martian year. The main payloads of the InSight lander are a seismometer (SEIS), the HP3 heat flow probe and radiometer (for surface brightness temperature), as well as the radio science Rotation and Interior Structure Experiment (RISE). An ancillary sensor package consisting of atmospheric pressure and temperature sensors (APSS) as well as a magnetometer complement the payload. After landing on Mars the seismometer and HP3 were deployed onto the Martian surface by the robotic arm of the lander. HP3 is the contribution of DLR (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt e.V., Germany) to the InSight mission. It is designed to determine the geothermal heat flux by measuring the thermal conductivity and the rate of temperature increase with depth. HP3 is composed of a set of thermal sensors to determine thermal conductivity and subsurface temperature (TEM), a self-penetrating probe (termed the mole) to emplace sensors in the subsurface, two measurement suites to determine the depth of the thermal sensors (TLM & STATIL), a radiometer to determine the surface temperature forcing (RAD). The instrument is controlled by (backend) electronics (BEE) within the InSight lander’s thermal enclosure. The HP3 deployable elements are housed inside a support structure, and electrical connections to the lander and BEE are provided by the HP3 supply tethers [1]. The InSight mission has now been operating on Mars for more than one martian year. The radiometer has been monitoring the surface brightness temperature for a full martian year and has measured thermal effects during Phobos eclipses. The heat flow aspect of the HP3 investigation has unfortunately been less successful. The mole penetration initially proceeded no deeper than ~37 cm (tip depth below surface). During the past 2 Earth years, extensive recovery activities for the mole were performed on Mars to get the mole penetrated deeper into the surface. These activities were supported by the overall InSight team. The mole is now in its final position intruded into the upper surface layer (mole tilt ~30°) and covered with soil. No further penetration attempts will be performed

MASCOT—A Mobile Lander On-board the Hayabusa2 Spacecraft—Operations on Ryugu

MASCOT (‘Mobile Asteroid Surface Scout’) is a 10 kg mobile surface science package part of JAXA’s Hayabusa2 sample return mission. The mission was launched in December 2014 from Tanegashima Space Center, Japan. The Hayabusa2 spacecraft reached the target asteroid in summer 2018. After a mapping phase of the asteroid and a landing site selection process the MASCOT lander was deployed to the surface on the 3rd of October 2018. MASCOT operated successfully for about 17 h on the surface of Ryugu. It performed three relocation manoeuvres and one “Mini-Move” and returned 128 MBytes of data. MASCOT has been developed by the German Aerospace Center (DLR) in cooperation with the Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales (CNES). The main objectives were to perform in-situ investigations of the asteroid surface and to support the sampling site selection for the mother spacecraft. These objectives could be reached successfully. On 6th December 2020 Hayabusa2 successfully returned asteroid samples to the Earth