Using Engineering Cameras on Mars Landers and Rovers to Retrieve Atmospheric Dust Loading

Abstract:

Dust in the Martian atmosphere influences energy deposition, dynamics, and the viability of solar powered exploration vehicles. The Viking, Pathfinder, Spirit, Opportunity, Phoenix, and Curiosity landers and rovers each included the ability to image the Sun with a science camera that included a neutral density filter. Direct images of the Sun provide the ability to measure extinction by dust and ice in the atmosphere. These observations have been used to characterize dust storms, to provide ground truth sites for orbiter-based global measurements of dust loading, and to help monitor solar panel performance. In the cost-constrained environment of Mars exploration, future missions may omit such cameras, as the solar-powered InSight mission has. We seek to provide a robust capability of determining atmospheric opacity from sky images taken with cameras that have not been designed for solar imaging, such as lander and rover engineering cameras. Operational use requires the ability to retrieve optical depth on a timescale useful to mission planning, and with an accuracy and precision sufficient to support both mission planning and validating orbital measurements. We will present a simulation-based assessment of imaging strategies and their error budgets, as well as a validation based on archival engineering camera data.