Subsurface sounding in Northern hemisphere for Mars by MARSIS: Mars express mission

Abstract

The MARSIS observations are optimized during periods when the pericenter of the orbit is near or below zero degrees sun elevation ("nightside") and the nightside phase, the last of the primary MEX mission, occurs on March-July 2005, in the northern latitude of MARS regions. This paper provides a description of the modeling approach and of the expected performance of the MARSIS Radar in the northern hemisphere of Mars. Few models, suitable for a preliminary analysis of the MARSIS instruments are reported. The knowledge of these performance, evaluated according to the model used for the surface and subsurface of the Martian crust, are necessary in order to decide, during the planning activity of the mission, the radar operative mode. In addition the model utilized are an effective tool for the simulator that has to perform the radar equation inversion in order to evaluate, by the radar returns, the surface and subsurface dielectric characteristics. Few simulation results of the surface characteristics are reported and a radar gram is shown, as an example, in order to state the preliminary criteria for the radar equation inversion.

The Development of 3d Sub-Surface Mapping Scheme and Its Application to Martian Lobate Debris Aprons

“…The idea to use highly low frequency domain radar sounder, so called space borne GRP, for the mapping of the upper portions Martian crust was firstly introduced by MARSIS equipped in Mars Express (Picardi et al, 2004). Although, the demands to investigate distribution of liquid and solid water as the footprint of Martian geological evaluation had been actively proposed as shown in Carr (1996), the main focus of MARSIS observation was on the Martian polar deposits which are obviously significant ice (or dry ice) objects in solar systems and have crucial acting roles in the atmospheric circulation and the evolution (Picardi et al, 2005;Zuber et al, 2007) of Mars.…”

Rosetta and Mars Express observations of the influence of high solar wind pressure on the Martian plasma environment

“…Rosetta IES has a time resolution of 128 s and measures electrons in the energy range 0.001-22 keV/q with a field of view of 90 • ×360 • . MEX carries the Mars advanced radar for subsurface and ionospheric sounding (MARSIS) instrument (Picardi et al, 2004) and the analyzer of space plasma and energetic atoms (ASPERA-3) instrument, which includes the electron spectrometer (ELS) and the ion mass analyzer (IMA) . IMA measures ions in the energy range 0.01-36 keV/q with a time resolution of 192 s and a field of view of 90 • × 360 • .…”