The Mars rover subsurface penetrating radar onboard China's Mars 2020 mission
Bin Zhou, Shaoxiang Shen, Wei Lü, Qing Liu, Chuanjun Tang, Shidong Li, Guangyou Fang
Abstract
China's Mars probe, named Tianwen-1, including an orbiter and a landing rover, will be launched during the July-August 2020 Mars launch windows. Selected to be among the rover payloads is a Subsurface Penetrating Radar module (RoSPR). The main scientific objective of the RoSPR is to characterize the thickness and sub-layer distribution of the Martian soil. The RoSPR consists of two channels. The low frequency channel of the RoSPR will penetrate the Martian soil to depths of 10 to 100 m with a resolution of a few meters. The higher frequency channel will penetrate to a depth of 3 to 10 m with a resolution of a few centimeters. This paper describes the design of the instrument and some results of field experiments.