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Green light for deployment of ESA's Mars Express radar

8 February 2005

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The Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionospheric Sounding (MARSIS) on board ESA's Mars Express will employ ground-penetrating radar to map underground water (if it exists) on Mars.

Low-frequency waves will be directed towards the planet from a 40-metre long antenna which will be unfurled after Mars Express goes into orbit. The radio waves will be reflected from any surface they encounter.

In most cases this will be the surface of Mars, but because low frequencies are used, a significant fraction will travel through the crust to encounter further layers of different material - perhaps even water.

Analysis of the echoes produced will reveal much about the composition of the top five kilometres of the crust.

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MARSIS main antenna during Mars Express payload tests. One of the two main radar booms is shown here, a 20-metre long hollow cylinder, of 2.5 centimetres diameter, folded up in a box like a concertina (accordion). When the box is opened, the elastic energy of the compressed glass-fibre booms will let them unfold like a jack-in-the-box.

Credits: Universität der Bundeswehr - München

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