Mars Express MARSIS: Active Ionospheric Sounder Spectral Density Measurements

The Mars Express MARSIS Active Ionospheric Sounder (AIS) full resolution data set includes all spectral information calibrated in units of spectral density for the entire Mars Express nominal mission. The data set consists of a transmit frequency followed by a time series of spectral density measurements of the received power. Browse products contain a spectrogram overview plot and individual ionograms for each sounding activity.

Use Cases

• Modeling Martian ionospheric structure based on spectral density time series.
• Analyzing signal propagation and attenuation in the Martian atmosphere based on received power measurements.
• Creating visualizations of ionospheric activity using the provided spectrogram overview plots and individual ionograms.

Strengths

• Data is calibrated in units of spectral density.
• Includes browse products (spectrogram plots and ionograms) for each sounding activity.
• Covers the entire Mars Express nominal mission.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Description metadata is limited; actual data quality requires manual inspection after download.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Collection Method

Collected by the Mars Express spacecraft's MARSIS (Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionosphere Sounding) instrument.

Time Range

Covers the Mars Express nominal mission.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-13 04:30:50.365917; freshness should be verified

Geography

Mars