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Analysis of Regolith Properties Using Seismic Signals Generated by InSight’s HP3 Penetrator

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Abstract

InSight’s Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure (SEIS) provides a unique and unprecedented opportunity to conduct the first geotechnical survey of the Martian soil by taking advantage of the repeated seismic signals that will be generated by the mole of the Heat Flow and Physical Properties Package (HP3). Knowledge of the elastic properties of the Martian regolith have implications to material strength and can constrain models of water content, and provide context to geological processes and history that have acted on the landing site in western Elysium Planitia. Moreover, it will help to reduce travel-time errors introduced into the analysis of seismic data due to poor knowledge of the shallow subsurface. The challenge faced by the InSight team is to overcome the limited temporal resolution of the sharp hammer signals, which have significantly higher frequency content than the SEIS 100 Hz sampling rate. Fortunately, since the mole propagates at a rate of \(\sim1~\mbox{mm}\) per stroke down to 5 m depth, we anticipate thousands of seismic signals, which will vary very gradually as the mole travels.

Using a combination of field measurements and modeling we simulate a seismic data set that mimics the InSight HP3-SEIS scenario, and the resolution of the InSight seismometer data. We demonstrate that the direct signal, and more importantly an anticipated reflected signal from the interface between the bottom of the regolith layer and an underlying lava flow, are likely to be observed both by Insight’s Very Broad Band (VBB) seismometer and Short Period (SP) seismometer. We have outlined several strategies to increase the signal temporal resolution using the multitude of hammer stroke and internal timing information to stack and interpolate multiple signals, and demonstrated that in spite of the low resolution, the key parameters—seismic velocities and regolith depth—can be retrieved with a high degree of confidence.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA

    Sharon Kedar, Bruce Banerdt, Matt Golombek, Troy Hudson & Aaron Kiely

  2. Department of Mechanical and Civil Engineering, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA

    Jose Andrade

  3. Ecole des Ponts ParisTech, Navier-CERMES, Paris, France

    Pierre Delage

  4. Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt e.V. (DLR), Berlin, Germany

    Matthias Grott, Martin Knapmeyer & Tilman Spohn

  5. Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, Göttingen, Germany

    Brigitte Knapmeyer-Endrun

  6. DLR, Köln, Germany

    Christian Krause

  7. Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris, Paris, France

    Taichi Kawamura & Philippe Lognonne

  8. Imperial College of London, London, UK

    Tom Pike

  9. Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA

    Youyi Ruan & Jeroen Tromp

  10. School of Earth Sciences, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK

    Nick Teanby & James Wookey

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  1. Sharon Kedar
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  2. Jose Andrade
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  3. Bruce Banerdt
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Correspondence to Sharon Kedar.

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Kedar, S., Andrade, J., Banerdt, B. et al. Analysis of Regolith Properties Using Seismic Signals Generated by InSight’s HP3 Penetrator. Space Sci Rev 211, 315–337 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11214-017-0391-3

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