  Before deploying to the surface of Mars, the short-period (SP) seismometer of
the InSight mission operated on deck for a total of 48 hours. This dataset can
be used to understand how deck-mounted seismometers can be used in future
landed missions to Mars, Europa, and other planetary bodies. While operating on
deck, the SP seismometer showed signals comparable to the Viking-2 seismometer
near 3 Hz where the sensitivity of the Viking instrument peaked. Wind
sensitivity showed similar patterns to the Viking instrument, although
amplitudes on InSight were ~80% larger for a given wind velocity. However,
during the low wind evening hours the instrument noise levels at frequencies
between 0.1 and 1 Hz were comparable to quiet stations on Earth, although
deployment to the surface below the Wind and Thermal Shield lowered
installation noise by roughly 40 dB in acceleration power. With the observed
noise levels and estimated seismicity rates for Mars, detection probability for
quakes for a deck-mounted instrument are low enough that up to years of on-deck
recordings may be necessary to observe an event. Because the noise is dominated
by wind acting on the lander, though, deck-mounted seismometers may be more
practical for deployment on airless bodies, and it is important to evaluate the
seismicity of the target body and the specific design of the lander. Detection
probabilities for operation on Europa reach over 99% for some proposed
seismicity models for a similar duration of operation if noise levels are
comparable to low-wind time periods on Mars.
