The radio science experiments on Mars Express (MaRs) and Venus Express (VeRa) conduct the following experiments:
- Radio sounding of the atmosphere and ionospheres (MaRs/VeRa)
- Bistatic Radar (MaRs/VeRa)
- Gravity experiments (MaRs)
- Phobos mass determination (MaRs)
- Solar Corona sounding (MaRs/VeRa)
The received ratio carrier frequency, power and polarization of the radio signal are recorded at the ground station antenna. The received sky-frequency is reconstructed at X-band and S-band and a precise frequency prediction is subtracted to yield frequency residuals which contain then the response from the propagation of the radio signal through the atmosphere/ionosphere, or from the asymmetrical gravity field, or from the frequency shift caused by the attracting force of Phobos or from the propagation through the solar corona.
The computed frequency residuals are calibrated for the Earth troposphere and ionosphere and archived in a standard format as level-2 products with the Planetary Science Archive (PSA). A mirror site exist with the Public Data System (PDS).
The radio sounding experiments (occultation experiments) and Bistatic Radar require further processing to achieve profiles of temperature, pressure, neutral number density and electron density of the atmosphere and ionosphere or the dielectric constants of the planetary surface, respectively.
RIU-PF makes available the profiles from the Mars and Venus atmospheres and ionospheres obtained during the Earth occultations of Mars Express and Venus Express from 2004 to 2013 and 2007 to 2013, respectively, on its server in Cologne, Germany.
The access to the server is restricted, protected by username and password, and requires approval and registration with the MaRs/VeRa PIs.
The interested user must agree to the conditions of use before approval.
Contact us for server access.
The following two links provide summary tables for all occultation seasons in PDF format.
The following two links provide the access to the MaRs or VeRa data archive of higher science data products.
Please, have username and password ready.