Four years of upper atmospheric exploration at Mars with MAVEN and IUVS
Résumé
The Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN mission (MAVEN) is a Mars orbiter equipped with instruments to study the current state of the Mars atmosphere, atmospheric loss processes, and their fundamental drivers. Most instruments make in situ measurements of particles and fields in the Mars environment and upper atmosphere. IUVS is the only remote sensing instrument for the study of Mars' atmosphere and its interaction with the plasma environment. The instrument has two main channels for the study of the upper atmosphere at far-UV and Mid-UV wavelengths, plus an echelle channel capable of spectrally resolving hydrogen and deuterium Lyman alpha lines to measure the D/H ratio. The instrument uses a scan mirror to obtain limb scans or disk maps and is mounted on an Articulated Payload Platform (APP) which maintains Mars pointing while the spacecraft bus and solar arrays maintain sun-pointing. The spacecraft travels on an elliptical orbit allowing limb scans to be obtained at periapse and full-disk imaging at apoapse, and scans of Mars corona in between. Thanks to the scan mirror, APP, and routine planning, the instrument observes with >50% duty cycles in a variety of repeating modes. On a bimonthly basis, the instrument performs two-day stellar occultation campaigns to probe atmospheric structure.
Domaines
Planète et Univers [physics]Origine | Fichiers produits par l'(les) auteur(s) |
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