Introduction to Icarus special issue "From Mars Express to ExoMars"

Abstract

In February 2018, the international community working on the investigation and exploration of the atmosphere and surface of Mars met at ESAC near Madrid for a few days conference, organized and funded by the project UPWARDS ("Understanding Planet Mars With Advanced Remote- ensing Datasets and Synergistic Studies", www.upwards-mars.eu) of the EU Horizon 2020 program. This project, and that conference, were devoted to promote the scientific exploitation of Mars Express data and to revisiting and sharing results from this mission, in preparation for the upcoming new European mission to Mars, the ExoMars-2016. The meeting approximately coincided in time with the end of the aerobraking phase of the Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO), which is the orbital element of ExoMars-2016. The TGO science phase started on 21 April 2018.