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

[PaulH51]

Looks like InSight's cameras may have witnessed a dust lifting event between Sols 943 & 946
Here's an ICC GIF using ICC frames from those 2 sols.
Look beyond the WTS for a bright streak across the ground, it's a little difficult to see in these unprocessed images, but I'm sure the image wizards here can increase the difference etc.
Fingers crossed that a gust of wind removed some of the dust on the lander's solar arrays

A processed GIF was posted on Twitter link in also contains links to the raw frames. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/J.Roger.

[Explorer1]

An image of the solar arrays would settle the matter (but need power to move the arm, of course).
Almost 1 month after aphelion...fingers crossed that the worst is over.....

[Phil Stooke]

In this image I merged 946 with a negative of 943, cranked up the contrast and merged the result with the original 943 to how where things are. The affected surface darkens as bright dust is stripped away. There have been other such events, including one streak in almost exactly the same place between sols 253 and 261 (Figure 10 in this paper:

Charalambous, C., McClean, J., Baker, M., Pike, T., Golombek, M., Lemmon, M.T., Ansan, V., Perrin, C., Spiga, A., Lorenz, R.D. and Banks, M., 2021. Vortex-dominated aeolian activity at InSight's landing site, Part 1: Multi-instrument observations, analysis, and implications. JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH-PLANETS, 126(6), p.e2020JE006757.)


BUT - this streak is much easier to see in the difference images.

Phil

[PDP8E]

Hey Paul, Phil,
a quickie try to get that streak more visible
spots of dust on the lens are coming off too...
GIF -- two frames

[PaulH51]

Hey Paul, Phil,
a quickie try to get that streak more visible
spots of dust on the lens are coming off too...

That's great news, the lens on the ICC camera is a lot closer to the solar arrays compared to the other side of the WTS
Fingers and toes crossed for a few more watt/hours from a small cleaning event

Thankyou...

[stevesliva]

Would be capriciously fitting if the weather station wasn't recording, but hopefully the watthours tell the tale.

[rlorenz]

It doesnt cover the recent sand-sprinkling cleaning efforts on InSight, but I have a paper just out (open access) that reviews the dust accumulation and removal on solar arrays on Mars landers/rovers (and Curiosity's UV sensors)

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pss.2021.105337

[Brian Swift]

It doesnt cover the recent sand-sprinkling cleaning efforts on InSight, but I have a paper just out (open access) that reviews the dust accumulation and removal on solar arrays on Mars landers/rovers (and Curiosity's UV sensors)

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pss.2021.105337

Thanks for sharing. Have studies been done of the feasibility of including a scale on a lander to weigh dust accumulation?

Unrelated to dust accumulation, do you have any good references for estimates of Mars' daylight spectral power distribution?

[rlorenz]

Unrelated to dust accumulation, do you have any good references for estimates of Mars' daylight spectral power distribution?

The Crisp paper cited in my article is one.
you could also look at https://trs.jpl.nasa.gov/bitstream/handle/2....pdf?sequence=1

[Phil Stooke]

As for a scale on the lander to weigh dust accumulation... it would be like the time I took my car to the recycling place to drop off some styrofoam packaging. They weighed the car, I dropped off a few chunks of styrofoam and they weighed the car again. Not a lot of difference!

Phil

[Brian Swift]

The Crisp paper cited in my article is one.
you could also look at https://trs.jpl.nasa.gov/bitstream/handle/2....pdf?sequence=1

Thanks for the response. I'll see if I can find a non-paywalled version of the Crisp paper.

[Fox]

1000 sols!

[Tom Tamlyn]

NASA’s InSight Finds Three Big Marsquakes, Thanks to Solar-Panel Dusting
The lander cleared enough dust from one solar panel to keep its seismometer on through the summer, allowing scientists to study the three biggest quakes they’ve seen on Mars.
On Sept. 18, NASA’s InSight lander celebrated its 1,000th Martian day, or sol, by measuring one of the biggest, longest-lasting marsquakes the mission has ever detected. The temblor is estimated to be about a magnitude 4.2 and shook for nearly an hour-and-a-half.

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasas-insight...r-panel-dusting

[Phil Stooke]

This link goes to a presentation by Bruce Banerdt to MEPAG in September:

https://mepag.jpl.nasa.gov/meeting/2021-09/...EPAG%20VM13.pdf


Check out especially slides 12 and 13 (text and a graph of the power budget). We just squeaked through the cold period around aphelion and now power is increasing again, but without a cleaning event the mission team project "... energy dropping below operational minimums in the May June timeframe." In other words it looks like we may lose the mission in 8 months if things progress as expected.

It would be nice if my interpretation is too pessimistic... but is it?

Phil

[mcaplinger]

It would be nice if my interpretation is too pessimistic... but is it?

Not a lot of room for ambiguity there. I'd say the biggest open question is how much margin there is on the survival energy threshold.

I have no particular knowledge so this is just from reading the slides.