University of Bern | ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter | CaSSIS | 2016 Nov 29
The Mars Camera, CaSSIS, on the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter captured its first high resolution images of the Red Planet last week. The Bernese camera worked almost perfectly and has provided spectacular views of the surface.
[c][youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opqz5mM8JMA[/youtube]First Images from ExoMars -- Credit: ESA/Roscosmos/ExoMars/CaSSIS/UniBE[/c][hr][/hr]CaSSIS (Colour and Stereo Surface Imaging System) has been developed by a team from the University of Bern led by Prof. Nicolas Thomas from the Center of Space and Habitability (CSH). It was launched with the European Space Agency’s ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) on 14 March 2016. TGO entered orbit around Mars on 19 October. The onboard camera, CaSSIS, has returned its first images from orbit. “The first images we received are absolutely spectacular -- and it was only meant to be a test,” says Nicolas Thomas. ...
TGO is currently in a highly elliptical orbit of just over 4 days duration. The spacecraft comes within 250 km of the surface for a very short period but then goes out to over 100,000 km from the planet. CaSSIS has imaged during two of these close approaches to test its capabilities and functions. The first approach occurred on 22 November. ...
The Bern team has spent much of the time planning the observation sequences for the two close approaches. A total of 11 images were returned during the first fly-by. The spacecraft passed over a region called Hebes Chasma at its closest approach. ...
Other data have been acquired to improve the quality of the data after post-processing. The resulting image quality has impressed the entire team. “We were quite nervous but it looks as though almost everything functioned as we planned it. The resulting images are really sharp,” says Antoine Pommerol ...
First views of Mars show potential for ESA’s new orbiter
ESA Space Science | ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter | 2016 Nov 29