Surficial Deposits at Gusev Crater Along Spirit Rover Traverses

The InSight HP3 Penetrator (Mole) on Mars: Soil Properties Derived from the Penetration Attempts and Related Activities

The NASA InSight Lander on Mars includes the Heat Flow and Physical Properties Package HP3 to measure the surface heat flow of the planet. The package uses temperature sensors that would have been brought to the target depth of 3-5 m by a small penetrator, nicknamed the mole. The mole requiring friction on its hull to balance remaining recoil from its hammer mechanism did not penetrate to the targeted depth. Instead, by precessing about a point midway along its hull, it carved a 7 cm deep and 5-6 cm wide pit and reached a depth of initially 31 cm. The root cause of the failure - as was determined through an extensive, almost two years long campaign - was a lack of friction in an unexpectedly thick cohesive duricrust. During the campaign - described in detail in this paper - the mole penetrated further aided by friction applied using the scoop at the end of the robotic Instrument Deployment Arm and by direct support by the latter. The mole tip finally reached a depth of about 37 cm, bringing the mole back-end 1-2 cm below the surface. It reversed its downward motion twice during attempts to provide friction through pressure on the regolith instead of directly with the scoop to the mole hull. The penetration record of the mole was used to infer mechanical soil parameters such as the penetration resistance of the duricrust of 0.3-0.7 MPa and a penetration resistance of a deeper layer ( > 30 cm depth) of 4.9 ± 0.4 MPa . Using the mole's thermal sensors, thermal conductivity and diffusivity were measured. Applying cone penetration theory, the resistance of the duricrust was used to estimate a cohesion of the latter of 2-15 kPa depending on the internal friction angle of the duricrust. Pushing the scoop with its blade into the surface and chopping off a piece of duricrust provided another estimate of the cohesion of 5.8 kPa. The hammerings of the mole were recorded by the seismometer SEIS and the signals were used to derive P-wave and S-wave velocities representative of the topmost tens of cm of the regolith. Together with the density provided by a thermal conductivity and diffusivity measurement using the mole's thermal sensors, the elastic moduli were calculated from the seismic velocities. Using empirical correlations from terrestrial soil studies between the shear modulus and cohesion, the previous cohesion estimates were found to be consistent with the elastic moduli. The combined data were used to derive a model of the regolith that has an about 20 cm thick duricrust underneath a 1 cm thick unconsolidated layer of sand mixed with dust and above another 10 cm of unconsolidated sand. Underneath the latter, a layer more resistant to penetration and possibly containing debris from a small impact crater is inferred. The thermal conductivity increases from 14 mW/m K to 34 mW/m K through the 1 cm sand/dust layer, keeps the latter value in the duricrust and the sand layer underneath and then increases to 64 mW/m K in the sand/gravel layer below.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11214-022-00941-z.

Assessment of InSight Landing Site Predictions

Comprehensive analysis of remote sensing data used to select the Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport (InSight) landing site correctly predicted the atmospheric temperature and pressure profile during entry and descent, the safe landing surface, and the geologic setting of the site. The smooth plains upon which the InSight landing site is located were accurately predicted to be generally similar to the Mars Exploration Rover Spirit landing site with relatively low rock abundance, low slopes, and a moderately dusty surface with a 3-10 m impact fragmented regolith over Hesperian to Early Amazonian basaltic lava flows. The deceleration profile and surface pressure encountered by the spacecraft during entry, descent, and landing compared well (within 1σ) of the envelope of modeled temperature profiles and the expected surface pressure. Orbital estimates of thermal inertia are similar to surface radiometer measurements, and materials at the surface are dominated by poorly consolidated sand as expected. Thin coatings of bright atmospheric dust on the surface were as indicated by orbital albedo and dust cover index measurements. Orbital estimates of rock abundance from shadow measurements in high-resolution images and thermal differencing indicated very low rock abundance and surface counts show 1-4% area covered by rocks. Slopes at 100 to 5 m length scale measured from orbital topographic and radar data correctly indicated a surface comparably smooth and flat as the two smoothest landing sites (Opportunity and Phoenix). Thermal inertia and radar data indicated the surface would be load bearing as found.

Geology of the InSight landing site on Mars

The Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport (InSight) spacecraft landed successfully on Mars and imaged the surface to characterize the surficial geology. Here we report on the geology and subsurface structure of the landing site to aid in situ geophysical investigations. InSight landed in a degraded impact crater in Elysium Planitia on a smooth sandy, granule- and pebble-rich surface with few rocks. Superposed impact craters are common and eolian bedforms are sparse. During landing, pulsed retrorockets modified the surface to reveal a near surface stratigraphy of surficial dust, over thin unconsolidated sand, underlain by a variable thickness duricrust, with poorly sorted, unconsolidated sand with rocks beneath. Impact, eolian, and mass wasting processes have dominantly modified the surface. Surface observations are consistent with expectations made from remote sensing data prior to landing indicating a surface composed of an impact-fragmented regolith overlying basaltic lava flows.

The InSight spacecraft landed on Mars on November 2018. Here, the authors characterize the surficial geology of the landing site and compare with observations and models derived from remote sensing data prior to landing and from ongoing in situ geophysical investigations of the subsurface.

The WISDOM Radar: Unveiling the Subsurface Beneath the ExoMars Rover and Identifying the Best Locations for Drilling

The search for evidence of past or present life on Mars is the principal objective of the 2020 ESA-Roscosmos ExoMars Rover mission. If such evidence is to be found anywhere, it will most likely be in the subsurface, where organic molecules are shielded from the destructive effects of ionizing radiation and atmospheric oxidants. For this reason, the ExoMars Rover mission has been optimized to investigate the subsurface to identify, understand, and sample those locations where conditions for the preservation of evidence of past life are most likely to be found. The Water Ice Subsurface Deposit Observation on Mars (WISDOM) ground-penetrating radar has been designed to provide information about the nature of the shallow subsurface over depth ranging from 3 to 10 m (with a vertical resolution of up to 3 cm), depending on the dielectric properties of the regolith. This depth range is critical to understanding the geologic evolution stratigraphy and distribution and state of subsurface H₂O, which provide important clues in the search for life and the identification of optimal drilling sites for investigation and sampling by the Rover's 2-m drill. WISDOM will help ensure the safety and success of drilling operations by identification of potential hazards that might interfere with retrieval of subsurface samples. Key Words: Ground penetrating radar—Martian shallow subsurface—ExoMars. Astrobiology 17, 565–584.

Cracks in Martian boulders exhibit preferred orientations that point to solar-induced thermal stress

The origins of fractures in Martian boulders are unknown. Here, using Mars Exploration Rover 3D data products, we obtain orientation measurements for 1,857 cracks visible in 1,573 rocks along the Spirit traverse and find that Mars rock cracks are oriented in statistically preferred directions similar to those compiled herein for Earth rock cracks found in mid-latitude deserts. We suggest that Martian directional cracking occurs due to the preferential propagation of microfractures favourably oriented with respect to repeating geometries of diurnal peaks in sun-induced thermal stresses. A numerical model modified here with Mars parameters supports this hypothesis both with respect to the overall magnitude of stresses as well as to the times of day at which the stresses peak. These data provide the first direct field and numerical evidence that insolation-related thermal stress potentially plays a principle role in cracking rocks on portions of the Martian surface.

Water alteration of rocks and soils on Mars at the Spirit rover site in Gusev crater

Gusev crater was selected as the landing site for the Spirit rover because of the possibility that it once held a lake. Thus one of the rover's tasks was to search for evidence of lake sediments. However, the plains at the landing site were found to be covered by a regolith composed of olivine-rich basaltic rock and windblown 'global' dust. The analyses of three rock interiors exposed by the rock abrasion tool showed that they are similar to one another, consistent with having originated from a common lava flow. Here we report the investigation of soils, rock coatings and rock interiors by the Spirit rover from sol (martian day) 1 to sol 156, from its landing site to the base of the Columbia hills. The physical and chemical characteristics of the materials analysed provide evidence for limited but unequivocal interaction between water and the volcanic rocks of the Gusev plains. This evidence includes the softness of rock interiors that contain anomalously high concentrations of sulphur, chlorine and bromine relative to terrestrial basalts and martian meteorites; sulphur, chlorine and ferric iron enrichments in multilayer coatings on the light-toned rock Mazatzal; high bromine concentration in filled vugs and veins within the plains basalts; positive correlations between magnesium, sulphur and other salt components in trench soils; and decoupling of sulphur, chlorine and bromine concentrations in trench soils compared to Gusev surface soils, indicating chemical mobility and separation.

Assessment of Mars Exploration Rover landing site predictions

Comprehensive analyses of remote sensing data during the three-year effort to select the Mars Exploration Rover landing sites at Gusev crater and at Meridiani Planum correctly predicted the atmospheric density profile during entry and descent and the safe and trafficable surfaces explored by the two rovers. The Gusev crater site was correctly predicted to be a low-relief surface that was less rocky than the Viking landing sites but comparably dusty. A dark, low-albedo, flat plain composed of basaltic sand and haematite with very few rocks was expected and found at Meridiani Planum. These results argue that future efforts to select safe landing sites based on existing and acquired remote sensing data will be successful. In contrast, geological interpretations of the sites based on remote sensing data were less certain and less successful, which emphasizes the inherent ambiguities in understanding surface geology from remotely sensed data and the uncertainty in predicting exactly what materials will be available for study at a landing site.

Localization and physical properties experiments conducted by Spirit at Gusev Crater

The precise location and relative elevation of Spirit during its traverses from the Columbia Memorial station to Bonneville crater were determined with bundle-adjusted retrievals from rover wheel turns, suspension and tilt angles, and overlapping images. Physical properties experiments show a decrease of 0.2% per Mars solar day in solar cell output resulting from deposition of airborne dust, cohesive soil-like deposits in plains and hollows, bright and dark rock coatings, and relatively weak volcanic rocks of basaltic composition. Volcanic, impact, aeolian, and water-related processes produced the encountered landforms and materials.

Pancam multispectral imaging results from the Spirit Rover at Gusev Crater

Panoramic Camera images at Gusev crater reveal a rock-strewn surface interspersed with high- to moderate-albedo fine-grained deposits occurring in part as drifts or in small circular swales or hollows. Optically thick coatings of fine-grained ferric iron-rich dust dominate most bright soil and rock surfaces. Spectra of some darker rock surfaces and rock regions exposed by brushing or grinding show near-infrared spectral signatures consistent with the presence of mafic silicates such as pyroxene or olivine. Atmospheric observations show a steady decline in dust opacity during the mission, and astronomical observations captured solar transits by the martian moons, Phobos and Deimos, as well as a view of Earth from the martian surface.

Initial results from the Mini-TES experiment in Gusev Crater from the Spirit Rover

The Miniature Thermal Emission Spectrometer (Mini-TES) on Spirit has studied the mineralogy and thermophysical properties at Gusev crater. Undisturbed soil spectra show evidence for minor carbonates and bound water. Rocks are olivinerich basalts with varying degrees of dust and other coatings. Dark-toned soils observed on disturbed surfaces may be derived from rocks and have derived mineralogy (+/-5 to 10%) of 45% pyroxene (20% Ca-rich pyroxene and 25% pigeonite), 40% sodic to intermediate plagioclase, and 15% olivine (forsterite 45% +/-5 to 10). Two spectrally distinct coatings are observed on rocks, a possible indicator of the interaction of water, rock, and airfall dust. Diurnal temperature data indicate particle sizes from 40 to 80 microm in hollows to approximately 0.5 to 3 mm in soils.

Wind-related processes detected by the Spirit Rover at Gusev Crater, Mars

Wind-abraded rocks, ripples, drifts, and other deposits of windblown sediments are seen at the Columbia Memorial Station where the Spirit rover landed. Orientations of these features suggest formative winds from the north-northwest, consistent with predictions from atmospheric models of afternoon winds in Gusev Crater. Cuttings from the rover Rock Abrasion Tool are asymmetrically distributed toward the south-southeast, suggesting active winds from the north-northwest at the time (midday) of the abrasion operations. Characteristics of some rocks, such as a two-toned appearance, suggest that they were possibly buried and exhumed on the order of 5 to 60 centimeters by wind deflation, depending on location.