An Almanac of Martian Dust Storms for InSight project energy system design

The power and thermal systems of NASA's new InSight lander must be designed to tolerate Martian dust storms, which have been observed to rise up and obscure much of the planet, approximately once in every three Mars years. To quantify the nature of the challenge posed by dust storms in terms of their seasonal occurrence, range of durations, and intensities, the project has performed an up-to-date, comprehensive assessment and inter-calibration of archived, historic Martian dust storm data. This unique assessment, captured in a new Dust Storm Almanac, combines direct measurements of Martian atmospheric optical depth made by both landed assets and orbital assets, in the Viking era (ca 1976) and also the present era of Martian spacecraft and instruments (1996-2013). The orbital observations of optical depth, which are in infrared, have been scaled based on calibration with contemporaneous visible-spectrum optical depth data made by surface assets. Implications of the observed dust storms for the design and operation of the InSight mission, as well as for Mars surface missions in general, are discussed.