Author Topic: ESA - Mars Express updates  (Read 126167 times)

Offline Dalhousie

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Re: ESA - Mars Express updates
« Reply #200 on: 02/06/2022 09:46 am »
New studies suggest that Mars Express did not discover currently liquid water underneath a polar ice cap.
 
Here's a report from July on a study that concluded that it was probably frozen clay:
https://scitechdaily.com/doubt-cast-on-premise-of-subsurface-liquid-water-lakes-on-mars-may-just-be-frozen-clay/

And another about a study that just came out concluding that the bright reflection came from a volcanic plain:
https://scitechdaily.com/misled-by-a-mars-mirage-hope-for-present-day-martian-groundwater-dries-up/

Other recent studies confirm it is most likely water. https://scitechdaily.com/liquid-water-confirmed-beneath-martian-south-polar-cap/
Apologies in advance for any lack of civility - it's unintended

Offline redliox

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Re: ESA - Mars Express updates
« Reply #201 on: 02/06/2022 02:08 pm »
New studies suggest that Mars Express did not discover currently liquid water underneath a polar ice cap.
 
Here's a report from July on a study that concluded that it was probably frozen clay:
https://scitechdaily.com/doubt-cast-on-premise-of-subsurface-liquid-water-lakes-on-mars-may-just-be-frozen-clay/

And another about a study that just came out concluding that the bright reflection came from a volcanic plain:
https://scitechdaily.com/misled-by-a-mars-mirage-hope-for-present-day-martian-groundwater-dries-up/

Other recent studies confirm it is most likely water. https://scitechdaily.com/liquid-water-confirmed-beneath-martian-south-polar-cap/

Sounds like a case of being unsure what's under the ice, even with the MARSIS studies.  Would this be an issue where ground-based radar and/or drilling required to confirm?
"Let the trails lead where they may, I will follow."
-Tigatron

Offline Dalhousie

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Re: ESA - Mars Express updates
« Reply #202 on: 02/06/2022 10:14 pm »
New studies suggest that Mars Express did not discover currently liquid water underneath a polar ice cap.
 
Here's a report from July on a study that concluded that it was probably frozen clay:
https://scitechdaily.com/doubt-cast-on-premise-of-subsurface-liquid-water-lakes-on-mars-may-just-be-frozen-clay/

And another about a study that just came out concluding that the bright reflection came from a volcanic plain:
https://scitechdaily.com/misled-by-a-mars-mirage-hope-for-present-day-martian-groundwater-dries-up/

Other recent studies confirm it is most likely water. https://scitechdaily.com/liquid-water-confirmed-beneath-martian-south-polar-cap/

Sounds like a case of being unsure what's under the ice, even with the MARSIS studies.  Would this be an issue where ground-based radar and/or drilling required to confirm?

Ground based radar is unlikely to help much, just have higher resolution.  A colleague of mine calls GPR "tea leaf reading" :)

Other techniques might provide some light - magnetotellurics, various EM and conductivity sounding.  Seismic could  be the best. 

Drilling would be very helpful but drilling deep holes on the polar ice cap is SF for the foreseeable future.
Apologies in advance for any lack of civility - it's unintended

Offline bolun

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Re: ESA - Mars Express updates
« Reply #203 on: 06/24/2022 02:01 pm »
Software upgrade for 19-year-old martian water-spotter

Quote
In brief

The MARSIS instrument on ESA’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 before.

Mars Express was ESA’s first mission to the Red Planet. Launched 19 years ago, on 2 June 2003, the orbiter has spent almost two decades studying Earth’s neighbour and revolutionising our understanding of the history, present and future of Mars.

Offline Rondaz

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Re: ESA - Mars Express updates
« Reply #204 on: 06/25/2022 07:27 pm »
Europe's veteran Mars orbiter gets upgrade to key instrument for seeking water..

https://twitter.com/Nick_Stevens_Gr/status/1540623095081361413

Offline bolun

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Re: ESA - Mars Express updates
« Reply #205 on: 08/23/2022 05:38 pm »
Global map of hydrated minerals on Mars

Data from two Mars missions have been used to create the first detailed global map of hydrated mineral deposits on Mars. These minerals are predominately clays and salts, and can be used to tell the history of water in the planet’s various regions. For the most part, the clays were created on Mars during its early wet period, whereas many of the salts that are still visible today were produced as the water gradually dried up.

The map has been painstakingly created over the last decade using data from ESA’s Mars Express Observatoire pour la Mineralogie, l’Eau, les Glaces et l’Activité (OMEGA) instrument and NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars (CRISM) instrument.

Various landing sites and areas of interest are shown on the map. Mawrth Vallis is an ancient water outflow channel that is rich in clays. Oxia Planum is another clay-rich region and has been selected as the landing site for ESA’s Rosalind Franklin rover. Meridiani Planum straddles the martian equator and was the landing spot for NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity in 2004. Valles Marineris is one of the largest canyons in the Solar System. Gale crater and Jezero crater were the landing sites of NASA’s Curiosity and Perseverance rovers in 2012 and 2020 respectively.

The clays shown on the map include iron and magnesium phyllosilicates, zeolites and aluminosilicate clays. The salts shown are carbonates made of carbon and oxygen.

Related article: New water map of Mars will prove invaluable for future exploration

Image credit: ESA/Mars Express (OMEGA) and NASA/Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (CRISM)

https://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Images/2022/08/Global_map_of_hydrated_minerals_on_Mars

Offline Dalhousie

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Re: ESA - Mars Express updates
« Reply #206 on: 08/25/2022 06:36 am »
New studies suggest that Mars Express did not discover currently liquid water underneath a polar ice cap.
 
Here's a report from July on a study that concluded that it was probably frozen clay:
https://scitechdaily.com/doubt-cast-on-premise-of-subsurface-liquid-water-lakes-on-mars-may-just-be-frozen-clay/

And another about a study that just came out concluding that the bright reflection came from a volcanic plain:
https://scitechdaily.com/misled-by-a-mars-mirage-hope-for-present-day-martian-groundwater-dries-up/

Other recent studies confirm it is most likely water. https://scitechdaily.com/liquid-water-confirmed-beneath-martian-south-polar-cap/

Sounds like a case of being unsure what's under the ice, even with the MARSIS studies.  Would this be an issue where ground-based radar and/or drilling required to confirm?

More radar may not help much, but seismic, because it measures different properties (acoustic velocity rather than dielectric permittivity) may help.  Drilling will be out until we can drilling 2-3 km holes through martian ice.
Apologies in advance for any lack of civility - it's unintended

Online FutureSpaceTourist

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Re: ESA - Mars Express updates
« Reply #207 on: 08/31/2022 09:53 am »
https://flic.kr/p/2nHHRp5

Quote
Perspective view of Holden Basin
This oblique perspective view of part of Mars’ informally named Holden Basin was generated from the digital terrain model and the nadir and colour channels of the High Resolution Stereo Camera on ESA’s Mars Express.

Offline redliox

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Re: ESA - Mars Express updates
« Reply #208 on: 11/01/2022 07:03 am »
I heard there was a Phobos flyby where the radar was utilized. Anyone hear details on that?
"Let the trails lead where they may, I will follow."
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Offline Hungry4info3

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Re: ESA - Mars Express updates
« Reply #209 on: 11/01/2022 09:19 am »
ESA put out this short summary of the results a few days ago.
https://www.esa.int/Enabling_Support/Operations/A_close_encounter_with_a_mysterious_moon

Offline Kaputnik

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Re: ESA - Mars Express updates
« Reply #210 on: 03/20/2023 01:07 am »
What's the current status of Mars Express? Wiki has the mission extension running to end of 2022.
Does anybody know how much longer it is expected to operate?
"I don't care what anything was DESIGNED to do, I care about what it CAN do"- Gene Kranz

Offline bolun

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Re: ESA - Mars Express updates
« Reply #211 on: 03/20/2023 01:43 pm »
What's the current status of Mars Express? Wiki has the mission extension running to end of 2022.
Does anybody know how much longer it is expected to operate?

https://sci.esa.int/web/director-desk/-/extended-life-for-esa-s-science-missions

Quote
The science operations of Mars Express are extended until end of 2026 and the SPC also approved the indicative extension of Mars Express from 1 January 2027 to 31 December 2028, enabling support to the JAXA-led Mars Moons eXploration (MMX) mission. This will be followed by two years of post-operations; the extension to 2028 will be reviewed in 2025/2026, after MMX launch and arrival at Mars.

Offline Kaputnik

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Re: ESA - Mars Express updates
« Reply #212 on: 03/20/2023 08:23 pm »
What's the current status of Mars Express? Wiki has the mission extension running to end of 2022.
Does anybody know how much longer it is expected to operate?

https://sci.esa.int/web/director-desk/-/extended-life-for-esa-s-science-missions

Quote
The science operations of Mars Express are extended until end of 2026 and the SPC also approved the indicative extension of Mars Express from 1 January 2027 to 31 December 2028, enabling support to the JAXA-led Mars Moons eXploration (MMX) mission. This will be followed by two years of post-operations; the extension to 2028 will be reviewed in 2025/2026, after MMX launch and arrival at Mars.

Excellent news, thank you!
Mars Express is a phenomenal little spacecraft.
"I don't care what anything was DESIGNED to do, I care about what it CAN do"- Gene Kranz

Online jacqmans

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Re: ESA - Mars Express updates
« Reply #213 on: 06/02/2023 08:51 am »
20 years and counting: Mars Express in numbers
02/06/2023

Exactly two decades ago, on 2 June 2003, ESA’s Mars Express orbiter launched and began its journey to the Red Planet – Europe’s first ever mission to Mars.

The spacecraft aimed to enter orbit around Mars (something it did in December of that year) and use its vantage point to study the martian atmosphere and climate, unravel the planet’s structure, mineralogy and geology, and search for traces of water across its surface. The mission carried a state-of-the-art package of eight instruments to achieve this, enabling it to probe surface, subsurface, atmosphere and more.

Mars Express has now been in space for two decades, despite a planned initial lifetime of just 687 Earth days. It has achieved its aforementioned aims and revealed a wealth of knowledge about Mars in that time, making it undeniably one of the most successful missions ever sent to the Red Planet. This graphic highlights some of the mission’s most impressive numbers to date, from the 1.1 billion km travelled over 24 000+ Mars orbits to the 170+ PhD students trained and 1800+ scientific papers published using Mars Express data. More record-breaking milestones were highlighted in an infographic released in 2019 to mark the mission’s 15-year anniversary.

The past 20 years of observations from Mars Express have solidified our picture of Mars as a once-habitable planet, with warmer and wetter epochs that may have been oases for ancient life. This is a monumental shift from our previous view of the planet, which characterised it as an eternally cold and arid world.

Mars Express has identified and mapped signs of past water across Mars – from minerals that only form in the presence of water to water-carved valleys, groundwater systems, and ponds lurking below ground – and traced its influence and prevalence through martian history. It has peered deep into the martian atmosphere, mapping how gases (water, ozone, methane) are distributed and escape to space, and watching as dust is whipped up from the surface into the air. The mission has seen giant dust storms engulf the planet, creating familiar clouds like those we see on Earth, and tracked rare ultraviolet auroras.

The orbiter has seen signs of recent and episodic volcanism and tectonics, and explored the planet’s unique surface features, mapping 98.8% of Mars and creating thousands of 3D images of impact craters, canyons (including the Valles Marineris system), the planet’s icy poles, immense volcanoes and more. It has studied Mars’ innermost moon Phobos in unprecedented detail – passing as close as 45 km from the mysterious moon – and watched Mars’ smaller moon, Deimos, as it travels through the Solar System.

Alongside its focus on Mars’ science, Mars Express has supported many other missions as they either hunt for a suitable landing site, travel to the planet, communicate with ground stations back on Earth, or touch down on the martian surface. Its data continues to support significant scientific research and discovery, including the training of new and early career researchers who will reveal the secrets of the cosmos in the decades to come. And the mission’s support of martian exploration is far from over; Mars Express’s latest extension enables it to support the JAXA-led Mars Moons eXploration (MMX) mission when it arrives in 2025.


Notes:

Mars Express launched on 2 June 2003, and entered orbit around Mars on 25 December 2003
The mission was originally designed to last 1 Mars year (1.88 Earth years, or 687 Earth days), but has been granted repeated extensions to continue its operations at Mars for 10.3 Mars years (and counting).

The spacecraft celebrated 10 martian years in orbit on 16 October 2022

The orbiter will continue its study of Mars until at least the end of 2026, with an indicative extension from 1 January 2027 to 31 December 2028 to support the JAXA-led Mars Moons eXploration (MMX) mission, followed by two years of post-operations. More information

Mars Express has conducted data relay for seven rovers and landing platforms (more information), and enabled scientific collaboration with a further five orbiters

The Visual Monitoring Camera was 'upgraded' to a scientific camera in 2016; there are seven other instruments that together make up the scientific payload.


https://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Images/2023/05/20_years_and_counting_Mars_Express_in_numbers
Jacques :-)

Offline Terrible T

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Re: ESA - Mars Express updates
« Reply #214 on: 06/02/2023 03:51 pm »
And Mars "Live" from 16.00UTC on youtube .

Offline Vahe231991

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Re: ESA - Mars Express updates
« Reply #215 on: 07/25/2023 03:58 am »
Quote
You've never seen Earth and the moon like this before.

The Mars Express spacecraft recently celebrated 20 years in space by taking a nostalgic look back at Earth and the moon from the Red Planet. The images captured by the European Space Agency (ESA) craft show our planet and its natural satellite as little more than a large white dot crossed by a smaller white dot.

And while this may not be the most spectacular image from space ever seen, the Mars Express picture demonstrates the distance between Earth and the Red Planet and what an achievement it is to put vehicles on and around our neighbor planet.

https://www.space.com/mars-express-sees-earth-moon-photos

Online FutureSpaceTourist

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Re: ESA - Mars Express updates
« Reply #216 on: 08/19/2023 12:20 pm »
https://twitter.com/esa/status/1692873119411617842

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📷 Becquerel crater on Mars, taken by ESA's #MarsExpress. A mound of light-coloured sulphate deposits sits inside the crater amid dark wind-blown deposits. The smaller crater inside Becquerel is about 50 km across 👉

https://www.esa.int/About_Us/ESAC/A_radiating_beauty_on_Mars
« Last Edit: 08/19/2023 12:20 pm by FutureSpaceTourist »

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