Leonard David's INSIDE OUTER SPACE

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Artist concept showing the protective role of the wind and thermal shield (WTS) at the martian surface.
Credit: IPGP/David Ducros

Now in Sol 46, NASA’s InSight Mars lander acquired these images on January 13 using its robotic arm-mounted, Instrument Deployment Camera (IDC).

Operators will soon make use of the five mechanical fingers of the grapple to pick up the Wind and Thermal Shield, placing it on top of the Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure (SEIS) now in position on the surface of Mars.

Insight’s robotic arm will also deploy the heat flow probe – a mole that burrows 16 feet (five meters) into the ground. That’s deeper than any instrument that has ever been to Mars.

The grapple fingers close around a handle that resembles a ball on top of a stem. Each of the three items the arm will lift has one of these handles.

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