The Mars Environmental Dynamics Analyzer (MEDA) is an instrument on board the Mars 2020 Perseverance rover designed to characterize dust size and morphology, as well as surface weather. This information is intended to inform future human exploration objectives, as dust sizes and shapes, daily weather reports, and information on radiation and wind patterns on Mars are critical for proper design of in situ resource utilization systems. MEDA is a follow-on project from REMS of the Curiosity rover mission, with a larger scope.
The instrument suite was developed and provided by the Spanish Astrobiology Center at the Spanish National Research Council in Madrid, Spain. On April 8, 2021, NASA reported the first MEDA weather report on Mars: for April 3âÂÂ4, 2021, the high was "minus-7.6 degrees, and a low of minus-117.4 degrees ... [winds] gusting to ... 22 mph".
The Principal Investigator is José Antonio RodrÃÂguez Manfredi and the Deputy Principal Investigator is Manuel de la Torre Juarez (JPL-NASA).
List of coinvestigators and their affiliations:
Dust dominates Mars' weather the way that water dominates Earth's weather. Martian weather cannot be predicted unless dust behavior is studied and understood in the weather context. MEDA is a suite of environmental sensors designed to record dust optical properties and six atmospheric parameters: wind speed/direction, pressure, relative humidity, air temperature, ground temperature, and radiation (UV, visible, and IR ranges of the spectrum).
The technology used on MEDA was inherited from the REMS package operating on the Curiosity rover and the TWINS package on InSight lander. The sensors are located on the rover's mast and on the deck, front and interior of the rover's body. It records data whether the rover is active or not, at both day and night. The instruments will collect data for 5 minutes every 30 minutes.