Anticipated plasma wave measurement onboard ExoMars 2020 surface platform

Abstract

The ExoMars 2020 Surface Platform will conduct environmental and geophysical measurements with the aim of studying the Martian surface and subsurface environment at the landing location. The Surface Platform instrumentation will include the Wave Analyzer Module (WAM) as a European contribution to the Russian-led Martian ground electromagnetic tool (MAIGRET) instrument. The wave analyzer module will be dedicated to measurements of magnetic field fluctuations in the frequency band from 100 Hz to 20 kHz. The scientific questions which we plan to address by measurements of the WAM have never been answered by direct measurements of the fluctuating magnetic fields in the appropriate range of frequencies directly on the surface of the planet. The immediate questions related to these targets are: 1. Can we observe electromagnetic radiation from electric discharges in the Martian dust storms? 2. Can we observe electromagnetic radiation propagating from the interplanetary space down to the surface of the planet?

Scientific Instrumentation Complex for the ExoMars-2022 Landing Platform

“…The device was developed in IKI RAS under the leadership of A.V. Skalsky with a key contribution from the Institute of Atmospheric Physics (Czech Republic), which supplied a search-coil magnetometer and a wave analyzer module (WAM) that is part of the MAIGRET electronics unit (Kolmasova et al, 2017). Unfortunately, there are no other publications on the device.…”