Opportunities to observe solar eclipses by Phobos with the Mars Science Laboratory

Abstract

We have generated predictions for observing Phobos transits during the period 2012-2014 using the Mars Science Laboratory. We describe how the detections of Phobos eclipses can be used as an alternative procedure to determine the coordinates of the rover. We present a numerical simulation to analyse the sensitivity of the precise observed contact times to the coordinate determination. The numerical results show that after four days of eclipse observations for 1 min each day, within the 25 × 20 km 2 landing site ellipse, the position of the lander can be determined to within an ellipse of 40 × 60 m 2 for uncertainties of 1 s in eclipse time observations. A 20 × 15 m 2 ellipse is estimated if a 0.1-s time precision can be gathered.