NASA Sending Robotic Geologist to Mars to Dig Super Deep

A slender cylindrical probe dubbed the mole is designed to tunnel nearly 16 feet (5 meters) into the Martian soil. A quake-measuring seismometer, meanwhile, will be removed from the lander by a mechanical arm and placed directly on the surface for better vibration monitoring. InSight is actually two years late flying because of problems with the French-supplied seismometer system that had to be fixed.