This project aims to develop techniques for crustal magnetic field measurement on the Moon and Mars using land-based rovers. Although past missions have carried magnetometers, the quality of the measurements cannot truly be used to construct the crustal magnetic field of a planet, as a single magnetometer is susceptible to interference from the rover's own components.

The prototype rover will have 27 magnetometers mounted in a rectangular array and will measure and cancel out its own sources of magnetic interference. Calibration methods will be developed as part of this project so the rover can differentiate its own magnetic sources from ambient magnetic sources.

Funding: UCLA

I am working on this project in collaboration with Dr. Peter Chi, a research geophysicist at the University of California, Los Angeles and a visiting scientist at the Goddard Space Flight Center. Visit his website here.

Publication

I have presented this research at the 2021 American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting and the 2022 Lunar and Planetary Science Conference. My work is published to the Earth and Space Science Open Archive and is accessible at https://doi.org/10.1002/essoar.10510400.1.