The drilling of the Martian soil by the heat probe HP3 has stopped at a depth of only 30 cm and for more than a month there is no way to go further.
Despite the use of the seismometer to try to determine the nature of the obstacle encountered, at the moment it has not yet been possible to determine what is preventing the drilling to proceed.
In the meantime a certain pessimism is spreading among the technicians involved in the attempt to resume the operation of HP3 and they are also considering the opportunity to try to reposition the probe itself, even if the operation would be very risky for the safety of the probe itself and in any case in the doubt that the problem could reoccur.
In fact, if the problem was due to a layer of rock, the limited range of the robotic arm of InSight could be insufficient to find a pierceable point.
It would be a pity to have to renounce to such an important experiment and I wonder if really the HP3 designers were convinced to meet only sand and small pebbles; how could they not consider the possible presence of a rocky layer?
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