An interesting little factoid Bruce just told me that won't make it in to my update today:

Panorama of the landing site (sol 14) with an extra sky:

On Sol 44 the SEIS instrument lowered itself as close as possible to the ground using its motorised legs.
This simple animated GIF uses 2 processed ICC images from sols 42 and 44 that show before and after it was lowered.
Click to view attachment
IDC images from sol 44 show what looks like another unsuccessful grapple stowage attempt (Third time is usually a charm)
Thanks to @LarsTheWanderer (Twitter) who spotted this as I missed it

No prize on sol 46 (January 13).
The team likely need a few more coins to practice
Click to view attachment
raw images: Link

So what's the rational behind the slit on the small ball, for it seems that without it the ball would have slipped through?

Sol 48 images are on the server link
Looks like they called for a change of tack and positioned the grapple over the tether pinning mass. Not sure if there are more images in the sequence, but they appear to have moved the arm away from SEIS, so it looks like there will be no more.
I guess they will review these images to see how close they were to alignment and then decide the next step.

Here is a processed and reduced GIF using some of the IDC frame
Click to view attachment

Odd they could not grab the ball, they must have done it dozens of times on Earth.

Maybe a thermal expansion thing.

GIF of the sol48 action from the ICC view:
Click to view attachment

Well, according to elakdawalla a few posts back who quoted Bruce Banerdt, they frequently miss the "grab" on earth too. I guess they will have to do some more testing to make the procedure work successfully more often or maybe they will just accept it takes a few tries. We'll see.

https://twitter.com/insight_ipgp SEIS twitter, and I used Google Chrome's offer to translate for me.

The latest posts show work on Earth to get the grapple stowed and mention the grapple positioning on Mars is an attempt to ensure the positioning "if the choice is made to use this technique."
https://twitter.com/InSight_IPGP/status/1085280443388198912

Another miss...

New images down

Click to view attachment

Animation of the grapple being successfully stowed on sol 50.
The lower 50% of the IDC images has been cropped
Click to view attachment

They win the prize !

Some dust cleaning events ?
(Sol 08 - Sol 26 - Sol 50)

Click to view attachment Click to view attachment Click to view attachment

What sort of things do you think they might do with the cameras once all the important instruments are deployed and working? Mosaic of the soil near the lander? A nice time lapse showing a complete Martian sol at maybe one frame a minute?

Good question: I got the impression that once the robotic arm had completed the deployment of the instruments it would return to the deck for the remainder of the mission. If that's the case, then the IDC camera will have a limited view of one section of the horizon that we saw just after landing, but without SEIS on the deck the view of the terrain will be a little wider. The wide angle ICC camera is finally getting rid of some of its dust (well spotted vikingmars) but we probably have a while to wait before it gets fully clean (if at all)... I guess they could use the ICC to get images of the instrument umbilical tethers from time to time to see if they have been lifted by the wind and could cause issues to SEIS through vibrations etc. I guess they could do long term change detection surveys at the same solar time of day, or even occasional dust devil surveys to back up the data from TWINS and the pressure sensor. I guess that there are plenty more things they could do, but much of that likely depends on the amount of bandwidth they are allocated to send all the data back to Earth.

BTW: Anyone seen any wind speed / direction data from TWINS, I checked out the Spanish web site that reports on the REMS for MSL but can't find anything. It would be good to hear that they are working as expected, even if we dont have the data yet.

A little dated with respect to wind measurements but try this.
https://aeolisresearch.com/papers/newmanIC2017.pdf

Many thanks, I'd not seen that one

Since it sounds like TWINS is will be keeping close to real-time sampling (twice/second), it would seem possible to run logic that would trigger upon profiles of any dust devil or other significant pressure events passing over the station so that it could automatically record image sequences in hopes of capturing detailed sequences of such events. The same data could keep the IDC aligned with the prevailing wind vectors and be able to catch them soon as they pass over, presuming dust devils tend to travel with the prevailing winds and don't veer too wildly..

Nothing, the mission is to listen absolutely quietly for quakes.

Any idea what will be done with the arm? Obviously nothing kinetic, but I was wondering if there was some position it could be placed in to assist in reducing noise from the cables or lander.

Maybe not...


InSight Mars Lander Robotics Instrument Deployment System
A. Trebi-Ollennu et al.
Space Sci Rev (2018) 214:93
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11214-018-0520-7


"On InSight, guarded move command capability will enable IDA physical properties experiments enumerated in Golombek et al. (2018) such as indentation, collapse of trench walls, and scraped and excavated dump piles."


Geology and Physical Properties Investigations by the InSight Lander
M. Golombek et al.
Space Sci Rev (2018) 214:84
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11214-018-0512-7

"The IDA can be used to generate sand/soil piles of different size and aspect ratios next to the lander (Fig. 12). Those piles could be monitored with the cameras for generating time series of the piles and their immediate surroundings. Ideally the evolution of the shape of the piles may be tracked by taking stereo images at regular intervals or after the wind blows. Depending on the wind activity (as measured by APSS), if a sand pile were to migrate away from the lander, a second pile could be created. Wind data can be collected and combined with the camera images for time lapse monitoring of changes...

The IDA has a scoop that can be used to conduct backhoe-style trenching, scraping, and scooping activities at the landing site...

The material scooped up by the arm during trenching or scraping can also be used to create a pile, which can be observed by the cameras. Multiple scoops and dumping procedures could build up larger piles."

Phil

Nice (maybe) Thanks Phil, I wonder if they considered dumping some scoops of regolith on the SEIS tether to keep it at more even temperature during the day / night cycles to prevent / reduce thermal expansion? (edited)
Meanwhile the Sol 52 images are down (link)
Some movement of the scoop on the slightly above and what appears to be the far side of the tether pinning mass, but I cant see any contact or movement in the tether. Maybe it was just a dry run? Attached is a simple GIF using 2 ICC frames, other frames were taken later in the day with the ICC and IDC, one IDC has data drop out! Maybe that's the one that could have shown any movement in the shunt on the side of the loop?
Click to view attachment

New images are on the InSight mission server, (sol 53) but I'm not sure what they are showing. There are also Some new images from sols 50 and 52

here's an animated gif of all the ICC frames (except the darkest ones) from sol "zero" to sol 52 56 showing major clearing event between sol44 and sol46

Click to view attachment(sized for 3mb limit)EDIT: updated to sol56

Great animation Atomoid Hopefully more of those events soon...

Here is a tweet from the SEIS team containing an animated GIF of an attempt to tug the SEIS tether pinning mass on sol 56, the scoop just brushed the top of the top of the pin, this caused a little movement at the shunt on the loop, but the IDC images acquired later confirmed the loop did not open. I guess we will see another attempt very soon Tweet link
Sol 56 Raw images Link

Animated GIF using two IDC frames of Insight's deck (camera calibration target) from Sol's 12 and 58, they were closely aligned and were acquired at similar solar times.
Note the accumulation of dust in that short time:
No image processing except the time stamps/credits and the animation in PhotoScape
Click to view attachment

Another animated GIF, this time before and after images of a successful tug on the pinning mass on the umbilical tether for SEIS.
The service loop has opened! But has it opened far enough to reduce noise? Images from sols 56 and 59
Click to view attachment

Translating a Tweet from Gabriel Pont (SEIS Instrument Manager) he states that the second attempt to separate the relaxation loop from SEIS was not sufficient. It will take a third...

Link

Here's one tweet from David Mimoun ("@NASAInsight co-I") that thinks we're done after the third pull:

The @Insight_IPGP ("SEIS") account is more cautious. Google translation of Tweet 1:

Tweet 2:

New pic on raw site confirms separation :

Here's an animation using the IDC images from sols 56, 59 and 60
Click to view attachment

News release from the SEIS twitter account in French Link

I'm still going through a rough translation, but it covers in detail the recent events including a report of a 20% drop in output from the solar arrays over a three day period due to a dust storm.

Google translated version (English) Link

Compiled from a few of the abstracts at LPSC, just released, here are some feature names.

Phil

Click to view attachment

A few more distant names added to a previous post of mine. This is from abstract 1694 by Matt Golombek et al.

Phil

Click to view attachment

Incredible : the unstowing of the grapple on Sol 62 released some dust on the camera optics

Before :Click to view attachment After : Click to view attachment

WOW : thanks a lot Phil for this superb work of yours

A streamable version (looped) using some of the frames link

Getting ready to grab the WTS.

The extremely thorough and interesting News releases on the SEIS website mention that they were concerned enough about dustfall that they could not leave the arm pointing skywards in stow position between attempts to stow the grapple.

WTS grabbed.
Click to view attachment

That goes on top of the seismometer?

Yes! But will it be put on top in a single day's movement like the placing of SEIS itself, or will they have multiple steps?

I think the general feeling is they'd like to do it in one day, just incase you know the low chance the grapple slips off, or the lander goes into safe mode leaving the WTS swaying in the wind.

WTS is in position !

It looks like the skirt is not extending all the way. I wonder if this was anticipated? The SEIS account on Twitter has an animation of the skirt slowly "relaxing": @InSight_IPGP

Click to view attachment Already extended

There was more extension to come after those pictures. The SEIS Twitter account tweeted that they guessed it had expanded a lot more based on the data from the seismometer and they were right: Tweet with GIF of extension.