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Posted by: Fox Oct 31 2022, 05:51 PM

The InSight mission has be very interesting to follow. I wonder how feasible it would be to build a handful of identical landers and disperse them to various locations around Mars. The seismometers could work in tandem, and the weather stations could watch conditions in multiple places. The moles could experiment with other types of soil. Not to mention new ground photos of some more regions.

Posted by: mcaplinger Oct 31 2022, 06:07 PM

No problem, if you have about $600M per vehicle exclusive of launch and operations cost. https://www.planetary.org/space-policy/cost-of-mars-insight

Posted by: scalbers Oct 31 2022, 06:37 PM

Reminds me of this proposal for MetNet:

http://fmispace.fmi.fi/old-metnet/index.php?id=72

Posted by: mcaplinger Oct 31 2022, 07:35 PM

Proposals for networks go back to at least MESUR: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MESUR

But as I understand it, Insight-quality seismometers are hard to accommodate on small fixed-base landers. Met instruments are much less challenging.

Posted by: StargazeInWonder Nov 1 2022, 02:26 AM

InSight provided information that wasn't previously available regarding the challenges of martian seismology, including the noise from wind. Of course, the failure of the heat probe mole and the lack of dust-clearing events at the InSight location were two other pieces of bad news from which a subsequent mission could learn. I don't know how those upgrades would compete against other possible missions, but it seems like sooner or later, there'll be a next, better Mars internal structure mission.