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NASA’s Insight Mars lander rescue operation makes progress saving ‘stuck’ probe
The scientists running NASA’s Insight Mars lander found themselves attempting a rescue operation for the mission when one of its instruments became stuck in the red planet’s regolith early last year. After a few assistance maneuvers using a robotic shovel-clad arm in the months since, it appears the team has finally reached a point where there’s light at the end of the dusty tunnel.
“Another short test has my self-hammering mole making gradual progress. Pressing down on the soil above has helped it dig a little further. We’ll do another of these moves soon,” the lander’s official Twitter page announced recently.
So what happened?
Another short test has my self-hammering mole making gradual progress. Pressing down on the soil above has helped it dig a little further. We’ll do another of these moves soon, with @NASAJPL and @DLR_en keeping a close eye. #SaveTheMole pic.twitter.com/3s7DVMYJyU
— NASA InSight (@NASAInSight) August 28, 2020
“Our leading theory was that the Mole did not move into the subsurface because the regolith did not provide enough friction to balance the recoil force of the Mole,” explained Tilman Spohn on DLR Blog, a site run by one of NASA’s European Insight partners, the German Aerospace Center.
The stuck instrument, named HP3 (Heat Flow and Physical Properties Package), is one of the three main experiment tools on board the lander. It functions as a 40 cm long self-hammering probe that digs straight down into the surface to measure heat flow from the Martian interior and its thermal state. When operating as designed, the thermal conductivity of the soil is measured every 50 cm up to a depth of 5 meters. NASA’s team refers to the device as a ‘Mole’ as a nod to its underground burrowing, and the hashtag ‘#savethemole’ has become its social media rally cry for supporters of the rescue mission.
Ironically, lack of friction to support planned digging is very similar to a key plot point in the movie The Core. The ship used by the main characters to dig to the center of the Earth was engineered to work in a high pressure environment, but in the film the core wasn’t very solid at all. As is the case with Insight, plenty of scientific thinking was employed to overcome the challenge, albeit a bit less dramatically.
A stuck heat probe isn’t Insight’s only issue of late, either. Weather sensors on board the lander stopped sending data back to Earth a couple of weeks ago, and NASA’s team suspects an electronics issue is to blame. The instruments are currently in safe mode and await a reset while scientists assess what data is available to troubleshoot the issue in the meantime.
Despite its troubles, NASA’s Mars lander has already shared some memorable firsts since its arrival on the red planet two years ago, and it has sent back an enormous amount of data that will be very useful to scientists as humans make their way through space for a meet up one day. For one, Earthlings were able to hear the sound of wind on an alien world for the first time thanks to Insight’s instruments. The lander also proved that hyper-affordable satellites could be used for deep space missions via its travel companions, Mars Cube One. Launch newcomer Rocket Lab is now capitalizing on the prospects of these types of missions, paving the way for big things in the near future.
You can watch an in-depth video about the HP3 instrument below:
For years, there have been images and videos across social media platforms that have reminded me of when I was a 15-year-old kid teased by “Xbox 720” videos on YouTube. These videos are of the supposed “Tesla Phone” that Elon Musk was secretly developing in between leading Tesla with its electric cars and SpaceX with its reusable rockets.
Would you buy a Tesla phone ? pic.twitter.com/aaTwvvIJit
— Tesla Owners Silicon Valley (@teslaownersSV) October 6, 2023
Although Musk has put those rumors to bed several times, it was never completely out of the realm that he could get involved in cell phones in some capacity. Think outside the box and more macro-level, though. Instead of reinventing the computer, Musk reinvented connectivity by developing Starlink with SpaceX.
It could be something similar, TD Cowen analyst Gregory Williams said in a note last week, where he hinted SpaceX could be gathering some steam to acquire T-Mobile.
Williams said it would be the “clear choice” for SpaceX if it decided to go through with a network acquisition. He also suggested AT&T.
The move would be possible through selling more of its own stock, which would help SpaceX raise the money to purchase T-Mobile, which would cost roughly $300 billion. It could be one of the moves SpaceX makes post-IPO in terms of an acquisition: it already acquired Cursor AI for $60 billion.
Other analysts, like Dan Ives of Wedbush, believe SpaceX and Tesla will eventually merge into one anyway, and that conglomeration could come as soon as this year, some have said.
The implications of SpaceX purchasing T-Mobile are massive. A combined entity would create a truly ubiquitous network: T-Mobile’s terrestrial 5G towers and Starlink’s growing constellation of Direct-to-Cell satellites. This would essentially eliminate dead zones across the U.S. and potentially globally.
SpaceX would instantly become a full-scale facilities-based carrier with satellite differentiation; a huge advantage. This would pressure AT&T and Verizon heavily.
There are also concerns like a potential reduction in long-term competition, and of course, a deal of that size would face intense scrutiny from government agencies.
The strategic fit is compelling due to the existing Starlink–T-Mobile partnership and complementary technologies (space + terrestrial). It could create a dominant integrated communications player. However, the regulatory, financial, and execution hurdles are enormous — this remains highly speculative with no indication SpaceX is actively pursuing it right now.
Tesla revealed a major new Cybercab detail in a guide it released for First Responders, showing new territory in its beliefs and intentions for the ride-hailing-focused vehicle that entered production in April.
The First Responders Guide is released to give fire departments, paramedics, and other emergency personnel the proper guidance on what to do in the event of an accident, entrapment, or other situation that would require immediate attention.
On one of the pages of the First Responders Guide, Tesla revealed a stark detail about the Cybercab, which could help personnel enter the vehicle more easily in case of an emergency.
Tesla Cybercab has one important piece that AI4 cars might need for FSD
It shows Tesla has no intention of releasing any Cybercab units that were initially proposed for ride-hailing services for the general public with any manual controls, meaning a steering wheel or pedals:
“A Cybercab equipped with steering wheel, brake pedal, and an acceleration pedal is typically an engineering or test vehicle, and operates at SAE Level 2 autonomy. Cybercab is not typically equipped with a steering wheel or acceleration and brake pedals.”
New official Cybercab documentation from Tesla:
“A Cybercab equipped with steering wheel, brake pedal, and an acceleration pedal is typically an engineering or test vehicle, and operates at SAE Level 2 autonomy. Cybercab is not typically equipped with a steering wheel or… https://t.co/P6ut1mZyzr pic.twitter.com/yq6skl9s2J
— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) June 27, 2026
This is a major development for those who continue to believe Tesla planned to release the Cybercab with any sort of manual controls so that passengers could take over if needed. However, when Tesla started manufacturing production versions of the Cybercab in Giga Texas earlier this year, they were spotted without a steering wheel or pedals.
It essentially confirms the company has no intentions of bringing manual controls to the car’s production versions. Some have argued that the likelihood of Tesla having something
There still are some Cybercab units out there with a steering wheel and pedals, and as Tesla said, these cars are engineering or test vehicles, which have Safety Monitors on board to help the car out of a precarious situation or emergency.
Tesla released the Full Self-Driving v14 ‘Lite’ suite to owners of Hardware 3 or AI3 vehicles today, adding several new features to the vehicles that were once believed to be capable of unsupervised self-driving.
Now, Tesla has released this modified suite to older Tesla vehicles, adding plenty of new features and capabilities.
Here are the full release notes for the suite:
- Distilled the intelligence from HW4 V14 into HW3. This allows HW3 to directly learn how to handle scenarios using HW4 V14 as a guide. This process unlocks the improvements that have been made to HW4 including Reinforcement Learning (RL) and offline models for HW3.
- Improved both proactive and reactive responsiveness across a wide variety of categories including navigation handling, merges and forks, pedestrian interactions, traffic lights, and vehicle cut-in scenarios.
- Improved general comfort in nominal scenarios through fewer false slowdowns, smoother steering and more consistent lane centering.
- Introduced parking, unparking, and reversing capabilities.
- Added Arrival Options for you to select where FSD should park: in a Parking Lot, on the Street, in a Driveway, or at the Curbside.
- Speed Profiles are now available at all times, to further customize driving style preference.
These improvements, according to Tesla’s Head of AI, Ashok Elluswamy, help distill the driving behavior from AI4’s v14 series into both the camera and compute configurations of AI3.
Tesla Full Self-Driving v14 ‘Lite’ for older cars finally gets released
He added:
“It includes destination options and speed profiles on city roads, but more importantly significantly improved safety. We hope you’ll enjoy it, once the build ships wide.”
FSD v14 Lite is now rolling out to AI3 early-access customers. Based on the feedback, will rollout to more customers over the next few weeks.
This build distills the driving behavior from AI4’s v14 series into both the camera and compute config of AI3. It includes destination…
— Ashok Elluswamy (@aelluswamy) June 29, 2026
Tesla will continue to roll out the v14 Lite suite more widely in the coming weeks, the company said.
Tesla Phone? Not quite, but close: analyst
Tesla reveals huge Cybercab detail in new guide for First Responders
