Insight lander - Page 10

Sol 343, November 13, 2019, and a weather swing is underway, either long term spring or short term regional change.
The air pressure is dropping fairly steadily, winds are high at 40-50 MPH, high temperature is rising a few degrees in the day time from the average highs of the past month, and even the lows have risen along with a strong increase in the average daily temperatures.
It will be interesting to read whether the vertical cycling can produce steady 24 hour and weekly patterns of pressure, wind speed, and temperature swings caused by local influence, or, perhaps the distant Southern hemisphere is capable of distant southern winter weather control of the equatorial belt.

https://mars.nasa.gov/insight/weather/

https://mars.nasa.gov/insight/

https://mars.nasa.gov/insight/multimedia/raw-images/?order=sol+desc%2Cdate_taken+desc&per_page=50&page=0&mission=insight

The images returned for 342 show the arm and scoop are being lowered towards the right side contact with the tube yet remain above the ground surface.
The lowering seems to be about 1 cm between 339 and 342. Not much change in the scoop surface appearance and ground area where lighted.
They may be in progress of another attempt to hammer into the obstruction with pressure applied from the scoop body.
Rising temperatures of only a few degrees, could that be a reason for the new motion? Overall lifetime of the machinery probably is a more motivational reasoning.

Image credits, originals; NASA/JPL-Caltech

A quick upload of the newest images showing the motion of the hammer during action, in just three cropped shots from Sol 346.
The vibration blurs the middle long image and the flattened ground behind the right side of the scoop depression is disrupted.
No real progress downward in appearance yet.

More later. Sorry for the mis-reference to the downward movement of the scoop as '1 cm'. It was actually more like a inch, or 2 1/2 cm.

My use of the three images from Sol 347 wasn't sufficient to tell the story from yesterday. In the series of images there was a motion to the tube with the arm, and during the motion the smooth near vertical pressed dust surface was disturbed, causing the collapse seen on the right side of the scoop body. The scoop is suspended in the air but against the tube now. At the timing of the images there is no indication that there was hammering during the collapse, but it could be there was hammering between images not seen.
It was therefore not the vibration seen in the image a couple minutes later which caused the collapse of dust.
It pays to look at each detail in a sequence.
If the simple pressure of the movement to the left with the arm caused the collapse of surface dust without hammering does that indicate a very leveraged or losse interaction within the soil between the tube and the surface dust above?
I interpret this as an open question of great importance.
I am presenting the stills of the problem for others asking NASA for answers if they choose.
How much hammering has been done without in real penetration distance again?

4:18:41pm Sol 346 Prior to collapse.

https://mars.nasa.gov/raw_images/742516/?site=insight

4:19;14pm Sol 346 Collapse evidenced between images.

https://mars.nasa.gov/raw_images/742525/?site=insight

4:20:16pm Sol 346 Vibration of grapple fingers, tube end, and general details, including the loose debris from the collapse of pressed dust on the right of scoop body.

https://mars.nasa.gov/raw_images/742526/?site=insight

A animated GIF of the Sol 343 and Sol 347 images showing a slight move to the left by the arm against the tube.

Open questions about number of hammer blows with no downward movement yet.

New effort to hammer into the regolith of Mars seems to be working currently, with an inch or two of depth at a stable angle after the scoop was placed against the tube during the week. A slight change of angle occurred during the scoop placement against the tube, and the changes improved the penetration as during prior efforts. Perhaps this hammering will work to at least the depth of the tube length.

An anigif for the view at actual size of the ICC camera view, crop at 650x510 pixels.
Image credits, originals; NASA/JPL-Caltech

Images for the 3 image sequence were early morning views from Sol 343, 347, and 350.

Another interesting weather topic trend is the continued SSE versus SW wind direction as a primary weather repeat occurrence.
The average wind direction and daily temperature differences are repeating as a weather pattern, seeming to be within a regional/hemispheric or planet-wide pressure gradient swing which is stable in pressure, but fluctuating in daily averages with averaged wind direction.
It would be better if we had trained persons to discuss the weather process here on the blog this year.

The increased pressures of the past months have altered to a continued drop in pressures as a pattern. The temperatures were locally dropping in past months, and now are trending slightly warmer, with short term patterned swings in both directions based on the local wind direction sources. Minute to minute records must be as difficult as Earth's weather patterns to calculate and explain.

Outstanding post Dana!

Thanks for the weather report!