The MARSIS instrument on the European Space Agency’s Mars Express spacecraft, famous for its role in the discovery of signs of liquid water on the Red Planet, is receiving a major software upgrade that will allow it to see beneath the surfaces of Mars and its moon Phobos in more detail than ever bef
, including a suspected 20-by-30 km lake of salty water buried under 1.5 km of ice in the southern polar region.
The MARSIS radar instrument on ESA’s Mars Express spacecraft is used to detect features such as water beneath the surface of Mars. It recently received a software upgrade that substantially improves its scientific performance. The area that could be studied during one use of the instrument before the upgrade can be seen on the right. The area that can be studied during one use now is on the left. Credit: INAF – Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica
“Previously, to study the most important features on Mars, and to study its moon Phobos at all, we relied on a complex technique that stored a lot of high-resolution data and filled up the instrument’s onboard memory very quickly,” says Andrea.
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Europe's veteran Mars orbiter gets upgrade to key instrument for seeking waterAndrew is a freelance space journalist with a focus on reporting on China's rapidly growing space sector. He began writing for Space.com in 2019 and writes for SpaceNews, IEEE Spectrum, National Geographic, Sky & Telescope, New Scientist and others. Andrew first caught the space bug when, as a youngster, he saw Voyager images of other worlds in our solar system for the first time. Away from space, Andrew enjoys trail running in the forests of Finland. You can follow him on Twitter AJ_FI.
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