MARS ADVANCED RADAR FOR SUBSURFACE AND IONOSPHERE SOUNDING (MARSIS)

According to the Mars Express mission, the MARSIS primary scientific objectives are to map the distribution of water, both liquid and solid in the upper portions of the crust of Mars. Three secondaiy objectives are also defined subsurface geologic probing, surface characterization, and ionosphere sounding. In order to obtain the primary objectives the Radar Sounder design was based on the Ice/water interface and Drylice interface scenario: defming the material composition of the first layers and porosity and the pore filling materials. Concerning the surface, we have characterized the geometric structure in terms of a large-scale morphology, on which a small-scale geometric structure, due to rocks, is superimposed, taking into account also that recently the structure of the planets surface was described by means of fractals and in particular the new MARS surface models obtained by processing of the MOLA data. According to these models, this paper provides a description of the operational planning approach and expected performances of MARSIS.