Sounding Radars and Ground Penetrating Radars Designed for the Exploration of Our Solar System–Focus on Planet Mars
Résumé
This chapter is specifically devoted to sounding radars and ground penetrating radars that are considered to be essential elements of the instrumental payload in almost all planetary missions. It explores the specificities of these radars in terms of design, operations and data interpretation. The chapter gives an overview of past, current and future radars developed for planetary exploration and will be illustrated by a limited selection of important results. It shows how the spatial context imposes constraints that have an impact on the design and the technical performances of the radar and can have consequences on the data interpretation. The chapter focuses on planet Mars. The Martian subsurface has been to date sounded by a series of four radars operating in different frequency ranges, which provide a range of interesting and complementary results that were able to provide significant inputs to scientific questions.