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Landing Site Thermal Minima for Rover Lifetime Concerns

Landing Site Thermal Minima for Rover Lifetime Concerns. Nathan T. Bridges and Terry Z. Martin Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Significant acknowledgments to M. Adler, P. Christensen, J. Murphy, and S. Pelkey. Effect of Low Night Temperatures.

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Landing Site Thermal Minima for Rover Lifetime Concerns

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  1. Landing Site Thermal Minima for Rover Lifetime Concerns Nathan T. Bridges and Terry Z. Martin Jet Propulsion Laboratory Significant acknowledgments to M. Adler, P. Christensen, J. Murphy, and S. Pelkey

  2. Effect of Low Night Temperatures • Rovers use battery power to maintain internal thermal state at night • Batteries are recharged by solar energy • Cold nighttime conditions can drain batteries to the extent daytime operations must be constrained • Total solar input is limited, and thus lifetime of rovers can be limited by nighttime ambient conditions • Coldest minima occur at the end of the nominal mission

  3. 1-m Air Temperatures • Worst case cold conditions occur predawn • Surface thermal inertia is the strongest influence • TES, THEMIS measure predawn surface temperatures that are most sensitive to thermal inertia variation • Other relevant parameters: • Dust optical depth (clear implies cold) • Latitude • Ls • Albedo • Elevation (surface pressure)

  4. Process • Albedo and inertia maps supplied by TES team • Run 1-D model developed by J. Murphy (NMSU) to treat Viking and Pathfinder near-surface air measurements • Model outputs surface and air temps as function of time of day, opacity, latitude, Ls, albedo, inertia • Produce A/I plot for each landing site • Minimum air temp can be expressed as contours in A/I space for a given opacity and Ls • Map the points falling below -97 C • Produce histograms using ellipse probability density distribution

  5. Typical Near-surface Thermal Behavior Minimum TES THEMIS

  6. Thermal Contours in Albedo/Inertia Space

  7. Isidis Site Minimum TemperaturesProbability of being < -97°C = 0%

  8. Gusev Site Minimum TemperaturesProbability of being < -97°C = 3%

  9. Elysium Site Minimum TemperaturesProbability of being < -97°C = 7%

  10. Hematite Site Minimum TemperaturesProbability of being < -97°C = 8%

  11. Thoughts • Ponding of cold air in topographic lows under still conditions could enhance nighttime minima; airbags may roll into such lows • Wind-induced mixing of warmer air from higher altitudes would help; mesoscale models may shed light on such nighttime winds; but Hematite shows little drainage wind • Winds would also act to mix air from varying A/I domains, making high-resolution THEMIS data less relevant

  12. Conclusions • Some regions within the Hematite, Elysium, and Gusev ellipses will produce lifetime-limiting cold night temperatures, but the probability of landing in these regions is < 10% • However, small spatial-scale thermal variation could be a factor. We are currently examining Themis nighttime IR data. • Mesoscale model results should be explored to corroborate these findings

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