The Mars rover’s wind sensor is broken by a pebble

FLORIDA – Wind sensor in weather station Mars explorer rover damaged by flying pebbles strong winds . Although it can still be used, this damage results in a decrease in the sensitivity of the sensor performance.

The Perseverance rover landed on Mars in February 2021 with several instruments, including the Mars Environmental Dynamics Analyzer (MEDA) weather station. The instrument includes two wind sensors that measure speed and direction, among several other sensors that provide weather metrics such as humidity, radiation and air temperature.

MEDA lead researcher Jose Antonio Rodriguez Manfredi said gravel carried by the Red Planet’s recent strong gusts damaged one of the wind sensors. However, the MEDA weather station was still able to track winds in its landing area at Jezero Crater, although its sensitivity decreased.

“Currently, the sensor is reduced in capabilities, but still provides data on the magnitude of the speed and direction (of the wind). The whole team is now resetting the (data) retrieval procedure to obtain accuracy from the undamaged detector readings,” wrote Rodriguez Manfredi, scientist at the Spanish Center for Astrobiology in Madrid, to Space.com Monday (4/7/2022).

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According to data from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, the two ruler-sized wind sensors at Perseverance are surrounded by six individual detectors that provide accurate data readings from all directions. Of the two main wind sensors installed, each can be opened to move away from the rover as it advances.

Moreover, the Mars rover, which is the size of a car, does affect the wind speed with its own movement when it passes through the thin Martian atmosphere. Like all instruments in Perseverance, the wind sensor is designed with redundancy and protection in mind.

For instruments like MEDA, the limitations are more challenging, as the sensors are exposed directly to the Martian environmental conditions for recording wind parameters. But when stronger-than-expected winds lifted larger-than-expected gravel, the combination resulted in damage to several detector elements.

“Neither the predictions nor the experience we have from previous missions predicted such strong winds, or such loose material. Ironically the sensors were damaged by the wind, or rather by what we investigated,” said Rodriguez Manfredi.

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The Perseverance Mars rover landed on Mars on February 18, 2021 along with a helicopter called Ingenuity. They explored ancient river deltas that were probably rich in microbes billions of years ago.

In addition to measuring wind, weather, and rock composition, the rover retrieves the most promising materials to cache for future sample return missions. The sample was sent back to Earth in the 2030s.

(wib)

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