InSight Surface Operations, 26 Nov 2018- 21 Dec 2022 Options

[nprev]

Congratulations to the InSight team on a successful landing! We'll discuss the remainder of the mission here.

[marsman2020]

With respect to the dust cover effectiveness. Here's some potentially useful context from Curiosity (I have no information on the InSight covers specifically)

Because the HazCams were a build to print of MER, they had already been qualification tested in a no-dust cover configuration when the risk of dirty HazCams was identified as requiring mitigation. As a result, the dust covers were not allowed to actually touch the lens assembly of the HazCam (to a avoid driving forces into the lens assembly that the camera was not qualified for). So it was accepted going in that they did not make a perfect seal. The cover hardware created a tortuous path that would require any dust to make 180 and 90 degree turns before ending up on the lens.

The dust cover implementation was a balance of not doing anything that would hurt the camera, against having the best cover possible. Lots of discussions and working with the camera team to arrive at something everyone was satisfied with.

Since InSight re-used a spare HazCam, the same 'no touch' requirement may have been imposed on this dust cover. It's possible that the dust and engine exhaust flow environment created by the lander engines is different than a rover under a skycrane, which allowed more dust to get around the cover onto the glass.

My impression (based on everything I've read online) is that the current view will be completely OK for the uses of this camera. Dust on Curiosity's HazCams was more of a concern in terms of meeting mission requirements for drive distances - using the NavCams as backup hazard avoidance makes driving much slower.

Edit: I also think if you look at the Sol 0 picture with the covers on, and the picture right before the covers deploy on Sol 4 - there is a lot of motion of the larger dust on the cover within that time. So there seems to be a lot of wind moving dust around.