InSight mission Options

[Paolo]

the GEMS Discovery finalist has been renamed InSight and now has its own website: http://insight.jpl.nasa.gov/

[antipode]

Too bad a pair of DS2 seismographs couldn't be dropped off the deck as is falls

Exactly what I was thinking! Its too bad that penetrator technology seems to have gone nowhere since then, and Im not just talking about for Mars.

Still, here we all are musing about bolting stuff onto a Discovery class proposal, stuff that wouldnt make it a Discovery class proposal any more. That cap is why I love TiME so much, assuming they CAN actually fly the thing under the cap...

P

[PaulM]

I assume that there is a mission assumption is that the solar panels will continue to suppy power for much more than 90 days. I understand that the Pathfinder lander only lasted 90 days because of a complete lack of cleaning winds. The question that I want to ask is how common are cleaning winds on Mars? Perhaps the only safe landing site for the InSight mission is the Opportunity landing elipse? At least there cleaning winds are guaranteed.

I also wonder how much of its potential payload mass this mission is using? Would it really cost anything for the odd Phoenix instrument to be reflown? I would like to see Lidar reflown to a landing site where it could operate for longer than a very limited 150 days.

Obviously the most important missing instrument is a camera to scan the horizon. Would a pair of black and white Navcams cost much to fly? I guess that Navcams are two a penny given the number of spare Navcams that are flying on MSL.

[djellison]

. I understand that the Pathfinder lander only lasted 90 days because of a complete lack of cleaning winds.

No- the battery died. It was a silver-zinc battery, and couldn't withstand the manifold charging cycles that more recent technologies can.
Estimate were between 30 and 100 recharges would be the end of it. It lasted 83 sols (not 90)
Thereafter, the lander couldn't keep itself warm at night, and presumed failures of other components quickly followed.

The Level 1 requirement was a month.