2001 Mars Odyssey is a robotic spacecraft orbiting the planet Mars. The project was developed by NASA, and contracted out to Lockheed Martin, with an expected cost for the entire mission of US$297 million. Its mission is to use spectrometers and a thermal imager to detect evidence of past or present water and ice, as well as study the planet's geology and radiation environment. It is hoped that the data Odyssey obtains will help answer the question of whether life existed on Mars and create a risk-assessment of the radiation that future astronauts on Mars might experience. It also acts as a relay for communications between the Curiosity rover, and previously the Mars Exploration Rovers and Phoenix lander, to Earth. The mission was named as a tribute to Arthur C. Clarke, evoking the name of his and Stanley Kubrick's 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Mars Express is a space exploration mission being conducted by the European Space Agency (ESA). The Mars Express mission is exploring the planet Mars, and is the first planetary mission attempted by the agency. "Express" originally referred to the speed and efficiency with which the spacecraft was designed and built. However, "Express" also describes the spacecraft's relatively short interplanetary voyage, a result of being launched when the orbits of Earth and Mars brought them closer than they had been in about 60,000 years.
Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) was an American robotic space probe developed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and launched November 1996. MGS was a global mapping mission that examined the entire planet, from the ionosphere down through the atmosphere to the surface. As part of the larger Mars Exploration Program, Mars Global Surveyor performed atmospheric monitoring for sister orbiters during aerobraking, and helped Mars rovers and lander missions by identifying potential landing sites and relaying surface telemetry.
The Mars Polar Lander, also known as the Mars Surveyor '98 Lander, was a 290-kilogram robotic spacecraft lander launched by NASA on January 3, 1999, to study the soil and climate of Planum Australe, a region near the south pole on Mars. It formed part of the Mars Surveyor '98 mission. On December 3, 1999, however, after the descent phase was expected to be complete, the lander failed to reestablish communication with Earth. A post-mortem analysis determined the most likely cause of the mishap was premature termination of the engine firing prior to the lander touching the surface, causing it to strike the planet at a high velocity.
Deep Space 2 was a NASA space probe, part of the New Millennium Program. It included two highly advanced miniature space probes that were sent to Mars aboard the Mars Polar Lander in January 1999. The probes were named "Scott" and "Amundsen", in honor of Robert Falcon Scott and Roald Amundsen, the first explorers to reach the Earth's South Pole. Intended to be the first spacecraft to penetrate below the surface of another planet, after entering the Mars atmosphere DS2 was to detach from the Mars Polar Lander mother ship and plummet to the surface using only an aeroshell impactor, with no parachute. The mission was declared a failure on March 13, 2000, after all attempts to reestablish communications following the descent went unanswered.
The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) is a spacecraft designed to search for the existence of water on Mars and provide support for missions to Mars, as part of NASA's Mars Exploration Program. It was launched from Cape Canaveral on August 12, 2005, at 11:43 UTC and reached Mars on March 10, 2006, at 21:24 UTC. In November 2006, after six months of aerobraking, it entered its final science orbit and began its primary science phase.
Space-based radar or spaceborne radar is a radar operating in outer space; orbiting radar is a radar in orbit and Earth orbiting radar is a radar in geocentric orbit. A number of Earth-observing satellites, such as RADARSAT, have employed synthetic aperture radar (SAR) to obtain terrain and land-cover information about the Earth.
MARSIS is a low frequency, pulse-limited radar sounder and altimeter developed by the University of Rome La Sapienza and Alenia Spazio. The Italian MARSIS instrument, which is operated by the European Space Agency, is operational and orbits Mars as an instrument for the ESA's Mars Express exploration mission.
Planum Australe is the southern polar plain on Mars. It extends southward of roughly 75°S and is centered at 83.9°S 160.0°E. The geology of this region was to be explored by the failed NASA mission Mars Polar Lander, which lost contact on entry into the Martian atmosphere.
The Mare Australe quadrangle is one of a series of 30 quadrangle maps of Mars used by the United States Geological Survey (USGS) Astrogeology Research Program. The Mare Australe quadrangle is also referred to as MC-30. The quadrangle covers all the area of Mars south of 65°, including the South polar ice cap, and its surrounding area. The quadrangle's name derives from an older name for a feature that is now called Planum Australe, a large plain surrounding the polar cap. The Mars polar lander crash landed in this region.
Almost all water on Mars today exists as ice, though it also exists in small quantities as vapor in the atmosphere. What was thought to be low-volume liquid brines in shallow Martian soil, also called recurrent slope lineae, may be grains of flowing sand and dust slipping downhill to make dark streaks. While most water ice is buried, it is exposed at the surface across several locations on Mars. In the mid-latitudes, it is exposed by impact craters, steep scarps and gullies. Additionally, water ice is also visible at the surface at the north polar ice cap. Abundant water ice is also present beneath the permanent carbon dioxide ice cap at the Martian south pole. More than 5 million km3 of ice have been detected at or near the surface of Mars, enough to cover the whole planet to a depth of 35 meters (115 ft). Even more ice might be locked away in the deep subsurface.
Scalloped topography is common in the mid-latitudes of Mars, between 45° and 60° north and south. It is particularly prominent in the region of Utopia Planitia, in the northern hemisphere, and in the region of Peneus and Amphitrites Paterae in the southern hemisphere. Such topography consists of shallow, rimless depressions with scalloped edges, commonly referred to as "scalloped depressions" or simply "scallops". Scalloped depressions can be isolated or clustered and sometimes seem to coalesce. A typical scalloped depression displays a gentle equator-facing slope and a steeper pole-facing scarp. This topographic asymmetry is probably due to differences in insolation. Scalloped depressions are believed to form from the removal of subsurface material, possibly interstitial ice, by sublimation. This process may still be happening at present. This topography may be of great importance for future colonization of Mars because it may point to deposits of pure ice.
The planet Mars has two permanent polar ice caps. During a pole's winter, it lies in continuous darkness, chilling the surface and causing the deposition of 25–30% of the atmosphere into slabs of CO2 ice (dry ice). When the poles are again exposed to sunlight, the frozen CO2 sublimes. These seasonal actions transport large amounts of dust and water vapor, giving rise to Earth-like frost and large cirrus clouds.
The study of surface characteristics is a broad category of Mars science that examines the nature of the materials making up the Martian surface. The study evolved from telescopic and remote-sensing techniques developed by astronomers to study planetary surfaces. However, it has increasingly become a subdiscipline of geology as automated spacecraft bring ever-improving resolution and instrument capabilities. By using characteristics such as color, albedo, and thermal inertia and analytical tools such as reflectance spectroscopy and radar, scientists are able to study the chemistry and physical makeup of the Martian surface. The resulting data help scientists understand the planet's mineral composition and the nature of geological processes operating on the surface. Mars’ surface layer represents a tiny fraction of the total volume of the planet, yet plays a significant role in the planet's geologic history. Understanding physical surface properties is also very important in determining safe landing sites for spacecraft.
The Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer is an interplanetary spacecraft that was launched on 14 April 2023 from Guiana Space Centre in the French Guiana by the European Space Agency (ESA) with Airbus Defence and Space as the main contractor. The mission is planned to study Ganymede, Callisto, and Europa, three of Jupiter's Galilean moons. They are thought to have significant bodies of liquid water beneath their icy surfaces which would make them potentially habitable environments.
The Radar Imager for Mars' subsurface experiment (RIMFAX) is a ground-penetrating radar on NASA's Perseverance rover, part of the Mars 2020 mission. It uses radar waves to see geologic features under the surface.
The Radar for Europa Assessment and Sounding: Ocean to Near-surface (REASON) is a multi-frequency, multi-channel ice penetrating radar system that will be flown on board the Europa Clipper mission to Jupiter's moon Europa. REASON investigation will provide the first direct measurements of Europa's ice shell surface character and subsurface structure.
Roger Jay Phillips was an American geophysicist, planetary scientist, and professor emeritus at the Washington University in St. Louis. His research interests included the geophysical structure of planets, and the use of radar and gravity to investigate the surfaces and interiors of the planets.
The International-Mars Ice Mapper (I-MIM) mission is a proposed Mars orbiter being developed by NASA in collaboration with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), the Canadian Space Agency (CSA), and the Italian Space Agency (ASI). As the mission concept evolves, there may be opportunities for other space agency and commercial partners to join the mission. The goal of the orbiter is the quantification of extent and volume of water ice in non-polar regions of Mars. The results are intended to support future Mars missions, especially with respect to the search for habitable environments and accessible In situ resource utilization (ISRU) resources. The International-Mars Ice Mapper is an "exploration precursor mission", comparing it to the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) mission. The mission was envisioned to be launched as early as 2026. However, in March 2022, it was revealed in its fiscal year 2023 budget proposal that the US government would terminate NASA financial support for the Mars Ice Mapper, casting the project's future into uncertainty.
Salty subglacial lakes are controversially inferred from radar measurements to exist below the South Polar Layered Deposits (SPLD) in Ultimi Scopuli of Mars' southern ice cap. The idea of subglacial lakes due to basal melting at the polar ice caps on Mars was first hypothesized in the 1980s. For liquid water to persist below the SPLD, researchers propose that perchlorate is dissolved in the water, which lowers the freezing temperature, but other explanations such as saline ice or hydrous minerals have been offered. Challenges for explaining sufficiently warm conditions for liquid water to exist below the southern ice cap include low amounts of geothermal heating from the subsurface and overlying pressure from the ice. As a result, it is disputed whether radar detections of bright reflectors were instead caused by other materials such as saline ice or deposits of minerals such as clays. While lakes with salt concentrations 20 times that of the ocean pose challenges for life, potential subglacial lakes on Mars are of high interest for astrobiology because microbial ecosystems have been found in deep subglacial lakes on Earth, such as in Lake Whillans in Antarctica below 800 m of ice.
