沙尘暴对火星表面探测器的影响<bold>: </bold>回顾与展望
摘要
<p indent="0mm">The success and accuracy of Entry-Descent-Landing (EDL) for a surface mission to Mars depends on local and regional atmospheric conditions, including atmospheric density, winds, their variations with altitude, and the moment to execute the EDL. Dust storms and their enhanced atmospheric dust loading can affect the radiative heating of the atmosphere, atmospheric density structure, winds, and even the power output of the solar arrays onboard rovers/landers. The assessment and prediction of Martian dust storms are urgently required to serve the currently operating China’s Mars Rover-Zhurong and would be beneficial to China’s Mars mission to return Mars samples in the future. However, it is challenging to accurately predict when and where dust storms will occur on Mars. A detailed review of the effects of dust storms on Mars landers and rovers, which landed on the Martian surface between 1997 and 2018, will allow for a preliminary exploration of the patterns of dust storm effects on rovers on the Martian surface. Studies on the critical effects of dust storms showed that dust accumulates at a relatively steady rate on the surface of solar arrays on rovers, and dust storms, particularly global storms, can greatly accelerate the rate of dust deposition. For example, the global dust storm in 2007 rapidly reduced the dust factor of opportunity and spirit solar arrays by approximately half. Against a background of dust accumulation, most detectors (e.g., solar array) onboard the rover would experience relatively more frequent dust removal events, which may be linked to the speed and direction of the background winds and dust storm transport trajectory. Moreover, the removal of dust from the surface of solar arrays occurs in a seasonally repeating pattern that might accompany the appearance of dust storms. Notably, dust removal event is not always proportional to background wind speed, meaning that dust removal event is stronger when the background wind speed