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Mars 96: UK Involvement In The Russian Mission

November 18, 1996

The Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council had awarded more than £1/2 million funding for work by UK scientists involved in several of the MARS 96 mission's payload and systems.

The largest UK contribution was from the Mullard Space Science Laboratory, led by Principal Investigator Professor Alan Johnstone. Mullard designed and engineered the FONEMA instrument (The Fast Omni-directional Non-scanning Energy Mass Analyser) that would have detected positively charged ions in the upper martian atmosphere. This was one of several instruments on the orbiter intended to investigate how the solar wind interacts with the martian atmosphere. The results would have helped scientists to understand:

the evolutionary loss of much of the Martian atmosphere;

the release of oxygen from water believed to be trapped beneath the surface,

and to reappraise their fundamental concepts of plasma physics.

Other UK groups involved in Mars 96 were Imperial College, the University of Sussex, the University of Kent and the University of Sheffield.

Mars 96 was a mission of the Russian Space Agency and due to reach Mars on the 12th September 1997. Shortly before arrival it was to despatch two small stations to land gently on the surface in the Amazonia/Arcadia Planitiae region and record the weather. Once in orbit it was also to release two dart-like penetrators to plunge into the surface and investigate the nature of the soil. The scientific instruments on the main spacecraft were to map the surface, investigate the chemical composition of the surface and the atmosphere, and study the interaction of the solar wind with the martian atmosphere.

FONEMA was constructed by the Mullard Space Science Laboratory and the Space Research Institute, Moscow, and was to provide evidence about whether or not Mars possesses a magnetic field and the nature of the plasma processes taking place in near-martian space. It was also to measure the rate at which oxygen molecules are escaping from the atmosphere during the break-up of water. This would have enabled scientists to determine what happened to the water which once flowed on Mars and how long ago the planet began to dry out.

Another experiment package, ELISMA (Electromagnetic Investigation of Mars) was to study the interactions between Mars and the solar wind. ELISMA was the main dedicated plasma wave experiment on the mission and comprised a series of sensors mounted on booms projecting from one of the solar arrays. The various instruments were built by an international consortium including nine institutes from six European countries. Among the participants were the Universities of Sussex and Sheffield which provided the Digital Wave Processor (DWP) component of the wave experiment.

Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council (PPARC)