The heat flow and physical properties package HP3 for the InSight mission

Abstract

The Heat Flow and Physical Properties Package HP3 for the InSight mission will attempt the first measurement of the planetary heat flow of Mars. The data will be taken at the InSight landing site in Elysium planitia (136 ◦E, 5 ◦N) and the uncertainty of the mea- surement aimed for shall be better than ±5 mW m−2 . The package consists of a mechanical hammering device called the “Mole” for penetrating into the regolith, an instrumented tether which the Mole pulls into the ground, a fixed radiometer to determine the surface brightness temperature and an electronic box. The Mole and the tether are housed in a support struc- ture before being deployed. The tether is equipped with 14 platinum resistance temperature sensors to measure temperature differences with a 1-σ uncertainty of 6.5 mK. Depth is de- termined by a tether length measurement device that monitors the amount of tether extracted from the support structure and a tiltmeter that measures the angle of the Mole axis to the local gravity vector. The Mole includes temperature sensors and heaters to measure the re- golith thermal conductivity to better than 3.5% (1-σ ) using the Mole as a modified line heat source. The Mole is planned to advance at least 3 m—sufficiently deep to reduce errors from daily surface temperature forcings—and up to 5 m into the martian regolith. After landing, HP3 will be deployed onto the martian surface by a robotic arm after choosing an instru- ment placement site that minimizes disturbances from shadows caused by the lander and the seismometer. The Mole will then execute hammering cycles, advancing 50 cm into the sub- surface at a time, followed by a cooldown period of at least 48 h to allow heat built up during hammering to dissipate. After an equilibrated thermal state has been reached, a thermal con- ductivity measurement is executed for 24 h. This cycle is repeated until the final depth of 5 m is reached or further progress becomes impossible. The subsequent monitoring phase consists of hourly temperature measurements and lasts until the end of the mission. Model calculations show that the duration of temperature measurement required to sufficiently re- duce the error introduced by annual surface temperature forcings is 0.6 martian years for a final depth of 3 m and 0.1 martian years for the target depth of 5 m.