The Good Old Trick

A while back, NASA's Insight Lander got into a bit of trouble on mars. The soil on mars was a bit "clumpier" than expected and their drill probe got stuck. The logical solution was to get Insight to whack it with a shovel. Miraculously, it worked.

Although it could be considered as a last resort and very risky maneuver, they actually spent a few months running simulations before the actual attempt that took place a few weeks ago.

So NASA was busy simulating shovels whacks for an extraordinarily long period of time...

simulating shovel whacks...