Landing page for project ED045

After more than 15 years of development and a number of "live" demonstrations on the Huygens (2005), Smart-1 (2006), Venus Express (2008 - 2014) and Mars Express (2009 - present time) ESA missions, the Planetary Radio Interferometry and Doppler Experiment (PRIDE) is preparing to provide new science capabilities for future missions, including present and future Mars landers. We propose observations of NASA's InSight lander, to improve the mission's science return, as well as to prepare for observations of ESA's ExoMars-2020 lander. The high spatial precision and the multi-station Doppler data provided by PRIDE provides a unique opportunity to enhance these missions' science return, specifically our understanding of the Martian interior. This is achieved by the PRIDE-Doppler data's capability to reduce the estimated uncertainty of Mars Orientation Parameters, which are strongly linked to the Martian interior. We request a total of nine one-hour observation epochs of the InSight lander on Mars, with three epochs for each session. For a single epoch in the three sessions, we request 15 minutes out of the 1-hour observation to be dedicated to near-field phase-referenced VLBI.

This data is part of the archive of VLBI data maintained by JIVE on behalf of the EVN, a network of radio telescopes located primarily in Europe and Asia, with additional antennas in South Africa. The EVN archive itself has the DOI https://doi.org/10.17616/R3Z197