The Noise Model of the SEIS Seismometer of the InSight Mission to Mars

Mimoun, David; Murdoch, Naomi; Lognonné, Philippe; Hurst, K.; Pike, W. T.; Hurley, J.; Nebut, T.; Banerdt, W. B.

doi:10.1007/s11214-017-0409-x

Cited by 85 publications

(120 citation statements)

References 41 publications

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“…The wind‐induced noise on the SEIS instrument of the InSight mission was studied in detail prior to landing Mimoun et al, ; Murdoch, Mimoun, et al, ; Murdoch et al, ). These analyses took into account the fact that the SEIS instrument would be positioned directly on the ground and that the lander wind‐induced noise would have to propagate elastically through the ground to SEIS.…”

Section: Lander Mode Characterizationmentioning

confidence: 99%

On‐Deck Seismology: Lessons from InSight for Future Planetary Seismology

et al. 2020

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Before deploying to the surface of Mars, the short-period (SP) seismometer of the InSight mission operated on deck for a total of 48 hr. This data set can be used to understand how deck-mounted seismometers can be used in future landed missions to Mars, Europa, and other planetary bodies. While operating on deck, the SP seismometer showed signals comparable to the Viking-2 seismometer near 3 Hz where the sensitivity of the Viking instrument peaked. Wind sensitivity showed similar patterns to the Viking instrument, although amplitudes on InSight were ∼80% larger for a given wind velocity. However, during the low-wind evening hours, the instrument noise levels at frequencies between 0.1 and 1 Hz were comparable to quiet stations on Earth, although deployment to the surface below the Wind and Thermal Shield lowered installation noise by roughly 40 dB in acceleration power. With the observed noise levels and estimated seismicity rates for Mars, detection probability for quakes for a deck-mounted instrument is low enough that up to years of on-deck recordings may be necessary to observe an event. Because the noise is dominated by wind acting on the lander, though, deck-mounted seismometers may be more practical for deployment on airless bodies, and it is important to evaluate the seismicity of the target body and the specific design of the lander. Detection probabilities for operation on Europa reach over 99% for some proposed seismicity models for a similar duration of operation if noise levels are comparable to low-wind time periods on Mars. Plain Language SummaryIn the Viking-2 mission in the late 1970s, a seismometer was used on the deck of the lander but only saw one event that could be interpreted as a signal like earthquakes on Earth. Because of this, the InSight mission put their seismic instrument on the ground and covered it up to keep the wind from blowing on it. But we can use the time period where it was turned on before getting put on the ground to figure out whether future missions could do seismology without placing it on the ground. We find that the wind blowing on InSight gave us similar signals to the Viking lander, even though InSight had a better instrument. When we use models of how many quakes should be on Mars, we find that keeping the instrument on deck makes it hard to see any quakes unless we listen for months or years. But we may be able to do better on planets and moons that do not have air and wind. A lander on Jupiter's moon Europa, for example, could have a large chance of detecting events within a few days of recording even if the instrument is not put on the ground.

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Section: Lander Mode Characterizationmentioning

confidence: 99%

On‐Deck Seismology: Lessons from InSight for Future Planetary Seismology

et al. 2020

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“…Noise models have already been developed for SEIS in previous studies, such as Lognonné and Mosser (1993), Pou et al (2016), Murdoch et al (2017a,b), Mimoun et al (2017), Fayon et al (2018). However, they were mainly focused on the nominal seismic range of SEIS between 0.01 Hz and 1 Hz (see Fig.…”

Section: Previous Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Besides the RWEB, the SA is also covered by a wind and thermal shield (WTS) protecting it from the external environment. Inspired by the data received from the Viking mission (Anderson et al 1977), these protections were checked with encouraging results from simulations and tests done in the past , Nishikawa et al 2014, Murdoch et al 2017a, Mimoun et al 2017.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In this paper, we will develop an active calibration procedure for SEIS to be executed on the Martian surface in order to determine in situ the gain of its instruments, and therefore to complement the calibrations made on Earth and the other calibrations made on Mars with calibration coils (see for more details). First, we complete the noise models developed in Mimoun et al (2017) by focusing on noises at low frequency due to the instrument and the environment. Afterwards, we describe how SEIS was modeled for this study, and specify the different constraints we had to work with for designing the calibration procedure.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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High Precision SEIS Calibration for the InSight Mission and Its Applications

et al. 2018

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Part of the InSight mission, the SEIS instrument (Seismic Experiment for Interior Structures), is planned to arrive on Mars in November 2018. In order to prepare its future recordings on the red planet, special attention was directed towards calibrating the seismometer in-situ on the Martian surface. Besides relative calibrations, we studied the possibility of actively calibrating the two kinds of seismometers onboard SEIS, the Very Broad Band seismometers (VBB) and the Short Period seismometers (SP) and extended the analysis towards a possible absolute calibration. For that purpose, we developed additional noise models at low frequency and elaborate on how they will be sensed by the seismic sensors from long-period data recorded by the seismometer. Such work will improve SEIS B L. Pou

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“…Adding to the complexity of the problem, the different environment on Mars, and the different deployment configuration (directly on the surface rather in a seismic vault, for example), compared to the Earth will result in different noise conditions for the Martian seismometer. Some examples of environmental noise contributions are the thermal and magnetic noise induced by temperature and magnetic field fluctuations (Mimoun et al 2017), the ground deformation induced by the atmospheric pressure variations (Murdoch et al 2017b), the dynamic pressure due to the wind acting directly on the seismometer (Lognonné et al 1996), and ground tilt or ground motion due to the interaction of the wind shield or the lander and the Martian winds (Nishikawa et al 2014;Lorenz 2012).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Flexible Mode Modelling of the InSight Lander and Consequences for the SEIS Instrument

Murdoch¹,

Alazard²,

Knapmeyer‐Endrun³

et al. 2018

Space Sci Rev

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We present an updated model for estimating the lander mechanical noise on the InSight seismometer SEIS, taking into account the flexible modes of the InSight lander. This new flexible mode model uses the Satellite Dynamics Toolbox to compute the direct and the inverse dynamic model of a satellite composed of a main body fitted with one or several dynamic appendages. Through a detailed study of the sensitivity of our results to key environment parameters we find that the frequencies of the six dominant lander resonant modes increase logarithmically with increasing ground stiffness. On the other hand, the wind strength and the incoming wind angle modify only the signal amplitude but not the frequencies of the resonances. For the baseline parameters chosen for this study, the lander mechanical noise on the SEIS instrument is not expected to exceed the instrument total noise requirements. However, in the case that the lander mechanical noise is observable in the seismic data acquired by SEIS, this may provide a complementary method for studying the ground and wind properties on Mars.

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The Noise Model of the SEIS Seismometer of the InSight Mission to Mars

Cited by 85 publications

References 41 publications

On‐Deck Seismology: Lessons from InSight for Future Planetary Seismology

On‐Deck Seismology: Lessons from InSight for Future Planetary Seismology

High Precision SEIS Calibration for the InSight Mission and Its Applications

Flexible Mode Modelling of the InSight Lander and Consequences for the SEIS Instrument

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