The Mars rover subsurface penetrating radar onboard China's Mars 2020 mission

摘要

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.