MARS EXPRESS ASPERA-3 IMA: Ion Data from the Third Mission Extension

NASA's Mars Express ASPERA-3 Ion Mass Analyzer (IMA) data covers the third mission extension from May 1, 2009, to December 31, 2012. The dataset likely contains time-series measurements of ion composition and moments from the Martian environment. It is hosted on the Data.gov platform.

Use Cases

• Modeling the Martian ionosphere based on ion composition data.
• Analyzing solar wind interaction with Mars based on ion moments.
• Studying temporal changes in the Martian plasma environment over the 2009-2012 period.

Strengths

• Data covers a specific, multi-year time range from May 2009 to December 2012.
• Produced by NASA, indicating a high level of mission and instrument quality control.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment for large-scale analysis.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)

Collection Method

Collected by the ASPERA-3 Ion Mass Analyzer (IMA) instrument aboard the Mars Express spacecraft.

Time Range

May 1, 2009 - December 31, 2012

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-13 05:02:51.009918; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Mars orbit and near-Mars space