ESA: Instruments selected for Mars

[bystander]

Instruments selected for Mars
ESA PR-17 | Space Science | 02 Aug 2010

ESA and NASA have selected the scientific instruments for their first joint Mars mission, ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter. Scheduled for 2016, it will study the chemical makeup of the martian atmosphere, including methane. Discovered in 2003, methane could point to life on the Red Planet.

NASA and ESA have embarked on a joint programme of martian exploration, an unprecedented new alliance for future ventures to Mars. The ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter is the first in a planned series of joint missions leading to the return of a sample from the surface of Mars. Scientists worldwide were invited to propose the spacecraft’s instruments.
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ESA and NASA have now selected five science instruments from the 19 proposals submitted in January 2010 in response to an Announcement of Opportunity for the first mission. They were judged to have the best scientific value and lowest risk, and will be developed by international teams of scientists and engineers on both sides of the Atlantic.
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In addition to the Trace Gas Orbiter, the 2016 mission will carry Europe’s entry, descent and landing demonstration vehicle. The whole mission will be launched on a NASA rocket.

The next ExoMars mission, scheduled for 2018, consists of a European rover with a drill, an American rover capable of caching selected samples for potential future return to Earth and a NASA landing system, using a NASA launcher.

These activities are designed to serve as the foundation of a cooperative programme to increase science return and move the two agencies towards a joint Mars sample-return mission in the 2020s.

The selected science instruments are:

• Mars Atmospheric Trace Molecule Occultation Spectrometer (MATMOS): An infrared spectrometer to detect very low concentrations of molecular constituents of the atmosphere. Principal Investigator: Paul Wennberg, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, USA. Participating countries: US, CA.
  
  High-resolution solar occultation and nadir spectrometer (SOIR/NOMAD): An infrared spectrometer to detect trace constituents in the atmosphere and to map their location on the surface. Principal Investigator: Ann Vandaele, Belgian Institute for Space Aeronomy, Brussels, Belgium. Participating countries: BE, IT, ES, GB, US, CA.
  
  ExoMars Climate Sounder (EMCS): An infrared radiometer to provide daily global measurements of dust, water vapour and chemical species in the atmosphere to aid the analysis of the spectrometer data. Principal Investigator: John Schofield, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, USA. Participating countries: US, GB, FR.
  
  High-resolution Stereo Color Imager (HiSCI): A camera to provide 4-colour stereo imaging at 2 m resolution per pixel over an 8.5 km swathe. Principal Investigator: Alfred McEwen, University of Arizona, Tucson, USA. Participating countries: US, CH, GB, IT, DE, FR.
  
  Mars Atmospheric Global Imaging Experiment (MAGIE): A wide-angle multi-spectral camera to provide global images in support of the other instruments. Principal Investigator: Bruce Cantor, Malin Space Science Systems, San Diego, USA. Participating countries: US, BE, FR, RU.

NASA And ESA'S First Joint Mission To Mars Selects Instruments
NASA News | PR 10-181 | 02 Aug 2010

[bystander]

Caltech, Canadian Space Agency Awarded NASA Project to Develop Spectrometer Headed to Mars
California Institute of Technology | 02 Aug 2010

Instrument will look for evidence of life and volcanic activity on Mars; will fly aboard ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter in 2016

The California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) announced today that they will be partnering on the development of the Mars Atmospheric Trace Molecule Occultation Spectrometer (MATMOS) instrument to be flown aboard the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter when it launches in 2016.

The project will be funded by a grant from NASA, with additional support coming from the CSA.

NASA participation in the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter is managed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of Caltech, in partnership with the European Space Agency.
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MATMOS is based on the Atmospheric Trace Molecule Spectroscopy (ATMOS) experiment, developed by JPL, and the Atmospheric Chemistry Experiment–Fourier Transform Spectrometer (ACE–FTS), pioneered by University of Waterloo and the Canadian Space Agency. The ATMOS instrument has flown four times on the Space Shuttle since 1985. ACE–FTS was launched in 2003 and is still operational.

[bystander]

UA-Operated Stereo Camera Selected for Mars Mission
University of Arizona | 02 Aug 2010

The High Resolution Stereo Color Imager, or HiSCI, is designed to uncover interactions between the surface and the atmosphere on the Red Planet.

NASA and the European Space Agency, or ESA, have embarked on a joint program to explore Mars in the coming decades and have selected five science instruments – including one from the University of Arizona – for the first mission.

The ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter, scheduled to launch in 2016, is the first of three joint robotic missions to the Red Planet. It will study the chemical makeup of the Martian atmosphere with a 1,000-fold increase in sensitivity over previous Mars orbiters.
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A stereo camera called the High Resolution Stereo Color Imager, or HiSCI, operated by the UA, will be a part of the orbiter.
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HiSCI will be operated by the same team at the UA's Lunar and Planetary Lab, or LPL, that has been acquiring images from Mars in stunning detail using the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment, or HiRISE, camera that is orbiting Mars.

HiSCI's color images will be much wider (more than 5 miles) than those of HiRISE (less than 1 mile), which will allow researchers to see much more of the Martian surface and changes that are occurring there.

Having the three-dimensional and color information from HiSCI also will add to the value of existing high-resolution images from HiRISE, according to Shane Byrne, assistant professor at LPL and deputy principal investigator on the HiSCI project.

[bystander]

SOIR-NOMAD selected for the ESA-NASA ExoMars mission to Mars
Belgian Institute for Space Aeronomy (BIRA-IASB) | 02 Aug 2010

After a recent selection process jointly organized by ESA and NASA, the Belgian-led European instrument SOIR-NOMAD came out as one of the winning proposals for inclusion in the payload of the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter mission to Mars planned for launch to the red planet in 2016.

SOIR-NOMAD will be developed and built by the Belgian Institute for Space Aeronomy (BIRA-IASB) located in Uccle, in collaboration with other Belgian scientists and engineers and institutes in 3 other European countries (Spain, Italy and the UK) and with additional science support from the USA and Canada. The Principle Investigator (PI) of SOIR-NOMAD is Dr. Ir. Ann Carine Vandaele of BIRA-IASB.

SOIR-NOMAD is a 3-channel spectrometer. 2 channels work in the infra-red and build upon the expertise of BIRA-IASB’s successful SOIR (Solar Occultation in the Infra-Red) instrument which is on-board ESA’s Venus Express mission (VEX). SOIR-NOMAD’s solar occultation channel (SO) is a copy of SOIR/VEX. The Limb, Nadir and Occultation channel (LNO) is an improved version of SOIR, more adapted for fainter light sources as it will not only measure in solar occultation but also in nadir mode, i.e. looking directly at the sunlight reflected from the surface and atmosphere of Mars. The modified design includes a larger entrance slit to increase the amount of light entering the optics, a new acousto-optical tunable filter to maximise throughput, and cooled optics. This last modification increases the signal to noise ratio the most, but is also the most challenging adaptation of SOIR. The developments will be carried out by prime contractor OIP, Oudenaarde, in collaboration with expert partners in Spain and Italy. The electronics will also be updated by Spanish colleagues who worked on Rosetta, Mars Express and Venus Express. BIRA-IASB manages all of the tasks carried out across Europe and maintains the documentation necessary for ESA and NASA. They also take care of the planetary protection aspects necessary for missions going to Mars, alongside their project management responsibilities.

The infra-red SO channel operates by observing up to 6 small slices of the full spectra range each second. This allows them to observe several different target molecules that absorb at different wavelengths, whilst maximising the signal to noise ratio for each. A solar occultation lasts about 5 minutes, allowing us to take 300 spectra of each wavelength and profile the atmospheric composition from the top of the atmosphere down to almost the surface (depending on dust levels).

The infra-red LNO channel can also observe up to 6 spectral regions per measurement but may have to integrate longer than 1 s in order to have enough signal to detect trace gases. Nadir measurements can only determine the total column of gas between the instrument and the reflecting surface, but can map variations across the planet, along the ground-track of the orbit. This way we can observe differences between the pole and the equator, and over the lifetime of the mission, also differences with the Martian seasons.
The additional UVIS channel, supplied by our UK partners, will extend the wavelength range from IR to UV and visible wavelengths, giving the SOIR-NOMAD suite access to ozone, sulphuric acid and aerosol studies. This ultra-light and very capable instrument had been selected for the Exomars lander, but was cancelled when the lander was cancelled in favour of a double rover mission in 2018. UVIS will be adapted for use in orbit and will image its entire spectral range in each observation of 1 second, covering several interesting molecules and giving more information about aerosols in the atmosphere.