EXOMARS - WISDOM

Synopsis: Ground validation tests for the EXOMARS-mission ground penetrating radar WISDM
Institution (PI): LATMOS / Valérie Ciarletti valé rie.ciarletti@latmos.ipsl.fr
Responsible on-site: Dirk Plettemeier 

Description

The ground penetration Radar WISDOM has been designed to investigate the shallow subsurface of Mars down to a depth of ~2-3 m, commensurate with the sampling capabilities of the mission’s drill onboard the rover. The information provided by WISDOM will assist in understanding the large-scale geology and history of the landing site, as well as selecting the most appropriate locations where to drill and collect sub surface samples for further analysis.

The instrument is still under validation and tests. Nevertheless measurements that have been initiated in various natural environments (glacier, sand, pyroclastic deposits,...) show that, as expected, the penetration depth is highly dependent on the kind of environment (fractured, conductive,...). Additional field investigations, conducted in a wide variety of simulated and natural Mars analogue environments, are planned to make further improvement in the instrument’s signal-to-noise ratio and to build a database of well-characterized terrestrial geologic environments for comparison with the data ultimately returned from Mars. The experiment in Dachstein will be part of this series of measurements performed in a variety of natural environments.

Experiment Data

Additional Publications