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Venus Express: Scientific goals, instrumentation, and scenario of the mission
Barabash, S.; Zhang, T. L.; Bertaux, J. -L. +23 more
The first European mission to Venus (Venus Express) is described. It is based on a repeated use of the Mars Express design with minor modifications dictated in the main by more severe thermal environment at Venus. The main scientific task of the mission is global exploration of the Venusian atmosphere, circumplanetary plasma, and the planet surfac…
Exploration of Venus with the Venera-15 IR Fourier spectrometer and the Venus Express planetary Fourier spectrometer
Ignatiev, N. I.; Zasova, L. V.; Formisano, V. +2 more
The infrared spectrometry of Venus in the range 6-45 µm allows one to sound the middle atmosphere of Venus in the altitude range 55-100 km and its cloud layer. This experiment was carried out onboard the Soviet automatic interplanetary Venera-15 station, where the Fourier spectrometer for this spectral range was installed. The measurements h…
Exploration of Mars in SPICAM-IR experiment onboard the Mars-Express spacecraft: 1. Acousto-optic spectrometer SPICAM-IR
Gondet, B.; Dimarellis, E.; Reberac, A. +12 more
The acousto-optic spectrometer of the near infrared range, which is a part of the spectrometer SPICAM onboard the Mars-Express spacecraft, began to operate in the orbit of Mars in January 2004. In the SPICAM experiment, a spectrometer on the basis of an acousto-optic filter was used for the first time to investigate other planets. During one and a…
Results of measurements with the Planetary Fourier Spectrometer onboard Mars Express: Clouds and dust at the end of southern summer. A comparison with OMEGA images
Bibring, J. -P.; Bellucci, G.; Altieri, F. +22 more
We discuss the results of measurements made with the Planetary Fourier Spectrometer (PFS) onboard the Mars Express spacecraft. The data were obtained in the beginning of the mission and correspond to the end of summer in the southern hemisphere of Mars ( L s ∼ 340°). Three orbits are considered, two of which passed through volcanoes O…
Exploration of Mars in the SPICAM-IR experiment onboard the Mars-Express spacecraft: 2. Nadir observations: Simultaneous observations of water vapor and O2 glow in the Martian atmosphere
Bertaux, J. -L.; Fedorova, A. A.; Korablev, O. I. +4 more
The SPICAM experiment onboard the Mars-Express spacecraft includes sounding the Martian atmosphere in the ultra-violet (118 320 nm) and near IR (1 1.7 µm) ranges. The infrared spectrometer operates in the range of 1 1.7 µm with a resolution of 3.5 cm-1 in the mode of nadir observations and solar and stellar occulations. This…
Radar sounding of Mars from the orbit of the Mars-Express automatic interplanetary station
Smirnov, V. M.; Yushkova, O. V.; Chernaya, L. F. +1 more
On the base of the laser altimetry results obtained using the orbital altimeter MOLA (the MGS mission) and the data of radio occultation experiments of transionospheric sounding of the Mars ionosphere, a method for interpretation of the planet radar sounding data is developed. The proposed method includes a program package for numerical simulation…