Radar Imager for Mars’ Subsurface Experiment—RIMFAX

Abstract

The Radar Imager for Mars’ Subsurface Experiment (RIMFAX) is a Ground Penetrating Radar on the Mars 2020 mission’s Perseverance rover, which is planned to land near a deltaic landform in Jezero crater. RIMFAX will add a new dimension to rover investigations of Mars by providing the capability to image the shallow subsurface beneath the rover. The principal goals of the RIMFAX investigation are to image subsurface structure, and to provide information regarding subsurface composition. Data provided by RIMFAX will aid Perseverance’s mission to explore the ancient habitability of its field area and to select a set of promising geologic samples for analysis, caching, and eventual return to Earth. RIMFAX is a Frequency Modulated Continuous Wave (FMCW) radar, which transmits a signal swept through a range of frequencies, rather than a single wide-band pulse. The operating frequency range of 150–1200 MHz covers the typical frequencies of GPR used in geology. In general, the full bandwidth (with effective center frequency of 675 MHz) will be used for shallow imaging down to several meters, and a reduced bandwidth of the lower frequencies (center frequency 375 MHz) will be used for imaging deeper structures. The majority of data will be collected at regular distance intervals whenever the rover is driving, in each of the deep, shallow, and surface modes. Stationary measurements with extended integration times will improve depth range and SNR at select locations. The RIMFAX instrument consists of an electronic unit housed inside the rover body and an antenna mounted externally at the rear of the rover. Several instrument prototypes have been field tested in different geological settings, including glaciers, permafrost sediments, bioherme mound structures in limestone, and sedimentary features in sand dunes. Numerical modelling has provided a first assessment of RIMFAX’s imaging potential using parameters simulated for the Jezero crater landing site.

Perseverance’s Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman and Luminescence for Organics and Chemicals (SHERLOC) Investigation

“…The SHERLOC investigation, along with other payload elements, such as Planetary Instrument for X-ray Lithochemistry (PIXL), SuperCam, Mastcam-Z, RIMFAX, and Mars Environmental Dynamics Analyzer (MEDA) (Allwood et al 2020;Hamran et al 2020;Rodriguez-Manfredi et al 2021) will provide critical data to decipher the evolutionary history of Jezero crater, reconstruct the environmental history of the Jezero lacustrine systems, and identify samples most likely to preserve potential biosignatures. The observations that acquire these data map directly to the SHERLOC investigation objectives (Table 2).…”

Ground penetrating radar observations of subsurface structures in the floor of Jezero crater, Mars

“…On Earth, ground-penetrating radar has become an invaluable tool for imaging otherwise inaccessible subsurface morphologies ( 9 , 10 ). The Radar Imager for Mars Subsurface Experiment (RIMFAX) ground-penetrating radar instrument on the Perseverance rover provides analogous subsurface imaging capabilities for Mars at spatial scales of tens of centimeter to hundreds of meters ( 11 ).…”

From Its Core to the Niche: Insights from GPR Applications

“…As a reference, results have highlighted significant geological differences between the two landing sites, underlining once again the potential that GPR technology could bring to the planetary exploration field [283][284][285][286]. More recently, the NASA Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover mission [287,288] has, for the first time, deployed a GPR platform on the surface of Mars [289,290] to assess the depth and extent of the regolith and to characterize the stratigraphic section by identifying material dielectric properties. On top of that, within this emerging field, GPR could provide critical information on the geological processes that formed the sedimentary surface of the planet and its past exposure history, as well as signs of past life.…”