Vaisala and FMI technologies head to Mars
04/08/2020
International collaboration is taking Vaisala and the Finnish Meteorological Institute (FMI) to Mars on board NASA’s Mars 2020 Perseverance rover, which launched on 30 July 2020. Vaisala’s sensor technology, combined with FMI’s measurement instrumentation, will be used to obtain accurate and reliable pressure and humidity data from the surface of the red planet.FMI is among the scientific partners providing measurement equipment for the new rover, which is expected to land on Mars in February 2021. The pressure and humidity measurement devices developed by FMI are based on Vaisala’s world-known sensor technology and are similar to but more advanced than the ones sent to Mars on the first rover, Curiosity, in 2012.
The new mission equipment complements the Curiosity rover. While working on Mars, the Curiosity and Perseverance rovers will form a small-scale observation network. The network is only the first step, anticipating the extensive observation network planned on Mars in the future.
The Mars 2020 mission is part of NASA’s Mars Exploration Program. In order to obtain data from the surface of the red planet, NASA selected trusted partners to provide measurement instruments for installation on the Mars rover. A Spanish-led European consortium is to provide the rover with the Mars Environmental Dynamics Analyzer (MEDA), a set of sensors that provides measurements of temperature, wind speed and direction, pressure, relative humidity and the number and size of dust particles.As part of the consortium, FMI delivers instrumentation to MEDA for humidity and pressure measurements based on Vaisala’s top-quality sensors.
“Mars, as well as Venus, the other sister planet of Earth, is a particularly important area of atmospheric investigations due to its similarities to Earth. Studying Mars helps us also better understand the behaviour of Earth’s atmosphere,” said Maria Genzer, Head of Planetary Research and Space Technology Group at FMI.
The harsh and demanding conditions of Mars require the most reliable sensor technology that provides accurate and reliable data without maintenance or repair.
“We are honoured that Vaisala’s core sensor technologies have been selected to provide accurate and reliable measurement data on Mars. In line with our mission to enable observations for a better world, we are excited to be part of this collaboration. Hopefully, the measurement technology will provide tools for finding answers to the most pressing challenges of our time, such as climate change,” said Liisa Åström, Vice President, Products and Systems, Vaisala.
In the extreme conditions of the Martian atmosphere, NASA will be able to obtain accurate readings of pressure and humidity levels with Vaisala’s Humicap® and Barocap® sensors. The sensors’ long-term stability and accuracy, as well as their ability to tolerate dust, chemicals and harsh environmental conditions, make them suitable for very demanding measurement needs, also in space. The same technology is used in numerous industrial and environmental applications, such as weather stations, radiosondes, greenhouses and data centres.
The humidity measurement device MEDA HS, developed by FMI for the Perseverance rover, utilises standard Vaisala Humicap humidity sensors. Humicap is a capacitive thin-film polymer sensor consisting of a substrate on which a thin film of polymer is deposited between two conductive electrodes. The humidity sensor on board is a new-generation sensor, with superior performance even in the low-pressure conditions expected on the red planet.In addition to humidity measurements, FMI has developed a device for pressure measurement, MEDA PS, which uses customised Vaisala Barocap pressure sensors, optimised to operate in the Martian climate. Barocap is a silicon-based micromechanical pressure sensor that offers reliable performance in a wide variety of applications, from meteorology to pressure-sensitive industrial equipment in the semiconductor industry and laboratory pressure standard measurements. Combining two powerful technologies, single-crystal silicon material and capacitive measurement, Barocap sensors feature low hysteresis combined with excellent accuracy and long-term stability, both essential for measurements in space.
“Our sensor technologies are used widely in demanding everyday measurement environments here on Earth. And why not? If they work on Mars, they will work anywhere,” Liisa concluded.
