Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover Mast Camera Zoom (Mastcam-Z) Multispectral, Stereoscopic Imaging Investigation

Creators: Bell, J. F., III; Maki, J. N.; Mehall, G. L.; Ravine, M. A.; Caplinger, M. A.; Bailey, Z. J.; Brylow, S.; Schaffner, J. A.; Kinch, K. M.; Madsen, M. B.; Winhold, A.; Hayes, A. G.; Corlies, P.; Tate, C.; Barrington, M.; Cisneros, E.; Jensen, E.; Paris, K.; Crawford, K.; Rojas, C.; Mehall, L.; Joseph, J.; Proton, J. B.; Cluff, N.; Deen, R. G.; Betts, B.; Cloutis, E.; Coates, A. J.; Colaprete, A.; Edgett, K. S.; Ehlmann, B. L.; Fagents, S.; Grotzinger, J. P.; Hardgrove, C.; Herkenhoff, K. E.; Horgan, B.; Jaumann, R.; Johnson, J. R.; Lemmon, M.; Paar, G.; Caballo-Perucha, M.; Gupta, S.; Traxler, C.; Preusker, F.; Rice, M. S.; Robinson, M. S.; Schmitz, N.; Sullivan, R.; Wolff, M. J.

Abstract

Mastcam-Z is a multispectral, stereoscopic imaging investigation on the Mars 2020 mission's Perseverance rover. Mastcam-Z consists of a pair of focusable, 4:1 zoomable cameras that provide broadband red/green/blue and narrowband 400-1000 nm color imaging with fields of view from 25.6° × 19.2° (26 mm focal length at 283 μrad/pixel) to 6.2° × 4.6° (110 mm focal length at 67.4 μrad/pixel). The cameras can resolve (≥ 5 pixels) ∼0.7 mm features at 2 m and ∼3.3 cm features at 100 m distance. Mastcam-Z shares significant heritage with the Mastcam instruments on the Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity rover. Each Mastcam-Z camera consists of zoom, focus, and filter wheel mechanisms and a 1648 × 1214 pixel charge-coupled device detector and electronics. The two Mastcam-Z cameras are mounted with a 24.4 cm stereo baseline and 2.3° total toe-in on a camera plate ∼2 m above the surface on the rover's Remote Sensing Mast, which provides azimuth and elevation actuation. A separate digital electronics assembly inside the rover provides power, data processing and storage, and the interface to the rover computer. Primary and secondary Mastcam-Z calibration targets mounted on the rover top deck enable tactical reflectance calibration. Mastcam-Z multispectral, stereo, and panoramic images will be used to provide detailed morphology, topography, and geologic context along the rover's traverse; constrain mineralogic, photometric, and physical properties of surface materials; monitor and characterize atmospheric and astronomical phenomena; and document the rover's sample extraction and caching locations. Mastcam-Z images will also provide key engineering information to support sample selection and other rover driving and tool/instrument operations decisions.

Additional Information

© The Author(s) 2020. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. Received 22 May 2020; Accepted 25 September 2020; Published 15 February 2021. The Mastcam-Z team has benefitted enormously from the technical, management, financial, and administrative support of the Mars 2020 Project, Payload, and Science Offices at JPL; from the Business Offices at ASU, JPL, and Malin Space Science Systems (MSSS); and from an outstanding and dedicated team of engineering and technical support staffers at MSSS, Ghaemi Optical Engineering, Motiv Space Systems, Optimax Systems, and Materion Precision Optics. We would specifically like to acknowledge the supporting contributions of Mars 2020 Project Review Board members Dave Braun, Todd Cetti, Gun-Shing Chen, Ann Devereaux, Tom Glavich, Alan Lee, Jackie Lyra, Steve Macenka, Bill Mateer, Jack Mustard, Glenn Reeves, Jose Rivera, Jeff Simmonds, Mark Underwood, Ken Williford, and Mike Wilson, as well as Calibration Peer Review Board members Peter Smith, Jason Soderblom, Joe Tansock, and Robert West. We also want to specifically acknowledge our gratitude for exemplary contributions to Mastcam-Z development and testing from Kevin Clark, Tim Clark, Elizabeth Cordoba, Tony Ghaemi, Barbara Hesselgesser, Stephanie Holaday, Emily Lakdawalla, Søren Nørvang Madsen, Mike Malin, Mike Mullenniex, Gerrard Panahon, Claire Quinto, Kim Saxton, Nicole Spanovich, Art Thompson, and Lisa Whelan. This work was supported by funding from: the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) at the California Institute of Technology, NASA's Ames Research Center, the United States Geological Survey, the European Space Agency (ESA) PRODEX Programme, the Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG), the Canadian Space Agency, the United Kingdom Space Agency, the German Aerospace Center (DLR), the Free University of Berlin, the Danish Research Agency, the Carlsberg Foundation of Denmark, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), the Canadian Space Agency (CSA), the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI), the Manitoba Research Innovation Fund (MRIF), and the University of Winnipeg. Data availability: Data and material described here are either already in the public domain, are being published via Open Access, or are being archived in the NASA Planetary Data System for general community and public access. Code availability: Not applicable. Author Contributions: All authors contributed to the study conception and design, as well as to material preparation, data collection and analysis. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Jim Bell and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript. The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest. The Mars 2020 Mission, Edited by Kenneth A. Farley, Kenneth H. Williford and Kathryn M. Stack.

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