P033-0019
The Mars Environmental Dynamics Analyzer: Pressure and Humidity Sensors and Science
Thursday, 10 December 2020
Poster
Leslie Tamppari1, Jose A Rodriguez-Manfredi2, Manuel de la Torre-Juárez3, Maria Genzer4, Maria Hieta4, Ari-Matti Harri5, J Polkko4, Iina Jaakonaho4, German Martinez6, Erik Fischer7, Agustin Sanchez-Lavega8, Ricardo Hueso9, Teresa del Rio - Gaztelurrutia10, Felipe Gomez11 and Daniel Viudez-Moreiras12, (1)NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA, United States, (2)Centro de Astrobiología (CSIC-INTA), Madrid, Spain, (3)Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA, United States, (4)Finnish Meteorological Institute, Helsinki, Finland, (5)Finnish Meteorological Inst, Helsinki, Finland, (6)Lunar and Planetary Institute, Houston, TX, United States, (7)University of Michigan Ann Arbor, Ann Arbor, MI, United States, (8)University of the Basque Country, Donostia, Spain, (9)University of the Basque Country, Fisica Aplicada I, Donostia, Spain, (10)University of the Basque Country UPV/EHU, Bilbao, Spain, (11)Centro de Astrobiologia and Instituto Nacional de Técnica Aeroespacial, Madrid, Spain, (12)Centro de Astrobiologia, Instituto National de Tecnica Aerospacial, Madrid, Spain
Abstract:
The Mars Environmental Dynamics Analyzer (MEDA) on board the Mars 2020
Perseverance rover is a suite of sensors designed to measure the surface pressure, air and surface temperature, horizontal and vertical wind, humidity, optical depth, dust particle size distribution and phase function to attain particle shape, and down-welling and up-welling radiation to provide net radiative forcing from UV through IR.
MEDA has high heritage from the REMS package operating on
Curiosity and the TWINS package operating on
InSight.
Two of the sensors, the pressure and relative humidity sensors, and the science they were designed to achieve, are described here.
The MEDA pressure sensor (PS) would continue a long history of Martian surface pressure measurements that began with Viking. Surface pressure measurements are important for understanding the dynamics of the Martian atmosphere and will contribute particularly to global effects such as the annual pressure variation due to polar cap change, regional weather events such as traveling storms, and very local events such as convective vortices and dust devils, as well as topography-driven changes such as slope flows.
The MEDA relative humidity sensor (HS) would measure the relative humidity at the rover location and thus help understand the Martian hydrological cycle. In particular, the HS would contribute to discerning the water fluxes between the surface and lower atmosphere in the vicinity of the rover, will provide boundary conditions for circulation models, and could be compared to constrain and augment orbital retrievals of water abundance. Near-surface relative humidity measurements on diurnal and seasonal time scales are important for understanding the distribution of water in the Martian atmosphere and the likelihood of stable, near-surface ice or brines, the gradients of these help determine the modern habitability potential of the local environment.
Details on measurements and analog science using REMS will be provided.
