Abstract
The NASA Mars InSight lander carries two color cameras: The Instrument
Context Camera (ICC), a wide-angle camera mounted to the lander, and the
Instrument Deployment Camera (IDC), mounted to the lander robotic arm.
The cameras provide both valuable information for lander and instrument
operation and essential data for a range of scientific studies. In this
study, we examine ICC images to investigate whether there is any shift
that might be associated with lander movement. Detection of lander
movement may lead to potential applications, including a possibility of
inferring the background magnetic field. We focused on the data
intervals where there were strong winds, many ICC images taken during
the Martian day, or during seismometer deployment. Because any potential
shift in ICC images is expected to be minuscule, we developed a computer
program to search for the shift between images which minimizes the sum
of squared differences in brightness. The preliminary results indicate
that the lander, ICC, and the mount are very robust. Our image analysis
method is suitable for identifying object movement in color images from
both InSight cameras.