Environmental factors in Mars atmosphere are a part of the research issues of the future Mars 2020 mission. The new rover surface vehicle will transport different instruments to investigate the geology, biology, and meteorology of Mars. Amongst these instruments, the Mars Environmental Dynamics Analyzer (MEDA) will be dedicated to the measurement of environment parameters. Two wind sensors will be included in the meteorological station MEDA because wind plays a very important role in Martian climate. High-quality wind data are required to build mathematical models of the Mars climate; therefore, powerful techniques are necessary to eliminate aerodynamic perturbations produced by the rover presence over wind measurements. This chapter is dedicated to the characterization of the aerodynamics around the Mars 2020 rover and its interaction with the rover Mars surface vehicle in order to get information to correct wind data coming from Mars.
Part of the book: Mars Exploration