Journal Article

Results from InSight Robotic Arm Activities

Langlais, B., Maki, J., Spohn, T., Ansan, V., Daubar, I. J., Lemmon, M., Williams, N., Lapeyre, R., Trebi-Ollennu, A., Banfield, D., Golombek, M., Kallemeyn, P., Verdier, N., Hurst, K., Gaudin, E., Marteau, E., Delage, P., Lorenz, R. D., Newman, C., White, B., Ali, K., Balabanska, N., Baker, M., Warner, N., Garvin, J. B., Lognonné, P., Banerdt, W. B., Hudson, T., Murdoch, N., Bailey, P., Charalambous, C., Johnson, C., Panning, M., Yana, C.

2023

Overview

The InSight lander carried an Instrument Deployment System (IDS) that included an Instrument Deployment Arm (IDA), scoop, five finger “claw” grapple, forearm-mounted Instrument Deployment Camera (IDC) requiring arm motion to image a target, and landermounted Instrument Context Camera (ICC), designed to image the workspace, and to place the instruments onto the surface. As originally proposed, the IDS included a previously built arm and flight spare black and white cameras and had no science objectives or requirements, or expectation to be used after instrument deployment (90 sols). During project development the detectors were upgraded to color, and it was recognized that the arm could be used to carry out a wide variety of activities that would enable both geology and physical properties investigations. During surface operations for two martian years, the IDA was used during major campaigns to image the surface around the lander, to deploy the instruments, to assist the mole in penetrating beneath the surface, to bury a portion of the seismometer tether, to clean dust from the solar arrays to increase power, and to conduct a surface geology investigation including soil mechanics and physical properties experiments. No other surface mission has engaged in such a sustained and varied campaign of arm and scoop activities directed at such a diverse suite of objectives. Images close to the surface and continuous meteorology measurements provided important constraints on the threshold friction wind speed needed to initiate aeolian saltation and surface creep. The IDA was used extensively for almost 22 months to assist the mole in penetrating into the subsurface. Soil was scraped into piles and dumped onto the seismometer tether six times in an attempt to bury the tether and ∼ 30% was entrained in the wind and dispersed downwind 1-2 m, darkening the surface. Seven solar array cleaning experiments were conducted by dumping scoops of soil from 35 cm above the lander deck during periods of high wind that dispersed the sand onto the panels that kicked dust off of the panels into suspension in the atmosphere, thereby increasing the power by ∼15% during this period. Final IDA activities included an indentation experiment that used the IDA scoop to push on the ground to measure the plastic deformation of the soil that complemented soil mechanics measurements from scoop interactions with the surface, and two experiments in which SEIS measured the tilt from the arm pressing on the ground to derive near surface elastic properties.

• Publisher: Springer,Springer Netherlands,Springer Nature B.V,Springer Verlag
• Subject: Aerospace Technology and Astronautics / Astrophysics / Astrophysics and Astroparticles / Cameras / Cleaning / Computer Science / Cybernetics, Artificial Intelligence and Robotics / Dispersion / Dumping / Dust / Earth and Planetary Astrophysics / Elastic properties / Geology / Indentation / Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysic / Mars surface / Meteorology / Panels / Physical properties / Physics / Physics and Astronomy / Planetology / Plastic deformation / Project development / Robot arms / Robotics / Saltation / Sciences of the Universe / Scoops / Seismographs / Seismometers / Soil investigations / Soil mechanics / Soil properties / Solar arrays / Solar collectors / Sols / Space Exploration and Astronautics / Space Sciences (including Extraterrestrial Physics / Special Communication / Tethers / Wind speed