The International Mars Ice Mapper Mission (I-MIM) is a proposed Mars orbiter being developed by

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the federal government of the United States, US federal government responsible for the United States ...

Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency The is the Japanese national Aeronautics, air and space agency. Through the merger of three previously independent organizations, JAXA was formed on 1 October 2003. JAXA is responsible for research, technology development and launch of satell ...

(JAXA), the

Canadian Space Agency The Canadian Space Agency (CSA; ) is the national space agency of Canada, established in 1990 by the ''Canadian Space Agency Act''. The President of the Canadian Space Agency, president is Lisa Campbell (civil servant), Lisa Campbell, who took ...

(CSA), and the

Italian Space Agency The Italian Space Agency (; ASI) is a government agency established in 1988 to fund, regulate and coordinate space exploration activities in Italy. The agency cooperates with numerous national and international entities who are active in aerospac ...

(ASI). As the mission concept evolves, there may be opportunities for other space agency and commercial partners to join the mission. The goal of the orbiter is the quantification of extent and volume of water ice in non-polar regions of

Mars Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun. It is also known as the "Red Planet", because of its orange-red appearance. Mars is a desert-like rocky planet with a tenuous carbon dioxide () atmosphere. At the average surface level the atmosph ...

. The results are intended to support future Mars missions, especially with respect to the search for habitable environments and accessible

In situ resource utilization In space exploration, in situ resource utilization (ISRU) is the practice of collection, processing, storing and use of materials found or manufactured on other astronomical objects (the Moon, Mars, asteroids, etc.) that replace materials th ...

(ISRU) resources. The International-Mars Ice Mapper is an "exploration precursor mission", comparing it to the

Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) is a NASA robotic spacecraft currently orbiting the Moon in an eccentric Polar orbit, polar mapping orbit. Data collected by LRO have been described as essential for planning NASA's future human and robotic ...

(LRO) mission. The mission was envisioned to be launched as early as 2026. However, in March 2022, it was revealed in its fiscal year 2023 budget proposal that the US government would terminate NASA financial support for the Mars Ice Mapper, casting the project's future into uncertainty.

Mission

The mission is to search for ice deposits under the surface of Mars, precursor for human missions there. By identifying locations where water ice may exist within 5-10 meters of the surface and thus could be accessed by crewed expeditions. The mission plans to scan specific locations on the Martian surface below

elevation The elevation of a geographic location (geography), ''location'' is its height above or below a fixed reference point, most commonly a reference geoid, a mathematical model of the Earth's sea level as an equipotential gravitational equipotenti ...

(to enable entry, descent and landing). The target areas for radar scans are between 25° and 40° northern

latitude In geography, latitude is a geographic coordinate system, geographic coordinate that specifies the north-south position of a point on the surface of the Earth or another celestial body. Latitude is given as an angle that ranges from −90° at t ...

and 25° and 40° southern latitude. The upper limit of 40° was chosen to have favorable conditions for solar arrays. The lower bound of 25° is intended to maximize the proximity of locating ground ice (since availability of ground ice generally decreases toward the equator due to increased

insolation Solar irradiance is the power per unit area ( surface power density) received from the Sun in the form of electromagnetic radiation in the wavelength range of the measuring instrument. Solar irradiance is measured in watts per square metre ...

). The ice-mapping mission could help the agency identify potential science objectives for initial

human missions to Mars The idea of sending humans to Mars has been the subject of aerospace engineering and scientific studies since the late 1940s as part of the broader exploration of Mars. Long-term proposals have included sending settlers and terraforming the p ...

, which are expected to be designed for about 30 days of exploration on the surface. For example, identifying and characterizing accessible water ice could lead to human-tended science, such as ice coring to support the search for life. Mars Ice Mapper also could provide a map of water-ice resources for later human missions with longer surface expeditions, as well as help meet exploration engineering constraints, such as avoidance of rock and terrain hazards. Mapping shallow water ice could also support supplemental high-value science objectives related to Martian climatology and

geology Geology (). is a branch of natural science concerned with the Earth and other astronomical objects, the rocks of which they are composed, and the processes by which they change over time. Modern geology significantly overlaps all other Earth ...

Science

Beyond promoting scientific observations while the orbiter completes its reconnaissance work, the agency partners will explore mission-enabling rideshare opportunities as part of their next phase of study. All science data from the mission would be made available to the international science community for both planetary science and Mars reconnaissance. This approach is similar to what NASA is doing at the Moon under the

Artemis program The Artemis program is a Exploration of the Moon, Moon exploration program led by the United States' National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), formally established in 2017 via Space Policy Directive 1. The program's stated long-ter ...

– sending astronauts to

lunar South Pole The lunar south pole is the southernmost point on the Moon. It is of interest to scientists because of the lunar water, occurrence of water ice in Crater of eternal darkness, permanently shadowed areas around it. The lunar south pole region fea ...

, where ice is trapped in the permanently shadowed regions of the pole. Access to water ice would also be central to scientific investigations on the surface of Mars that are led by future human explorers. Such explorers may one day core, sample, and analyze the ice to better understand the record of climatic and geologic change on Mars and its astrobiological potential, which could be revealed through signs of preserved ancient microbial life or even the possibility of living organisms, if Mars ever harbored life. Ice is also a critical natural resource that could eventually supply

hydrogen Hydrogen is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol, symbol H and atomic number 1. It is the lightest and abundance of the chemical elements, most abundant chemical element in the universe, constituting about 75% of all baryon, normal matter ...

and

oxygen Oxygen is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol, symbol O and atomic number 8. It is a member of the chalcogen group (periodic table), group in the periodic table, a highly reactivity (chemistry), reactive nonmetal (chemistry), non ...

for fuel. These elements could also provide resources for backup life support, civil engineering, mining, manufacturing, and, eventually, agriculture on Mars. Transporting water from Earth to deep space is extremely costly, so a local resource is essential to sustainable surface exploration. "In addition to supporting plans for future human missions to Mars, learning more about subsurface ice will bring significant opportunities for scientific discovery", said Eric Ianson, NASA Planetary Science Division Deputy Director and Mars Exploration Program Director. "Mapping near-surface water ice would reveal an as-yet hidden part of the Martian hydrosphere and the layering above it, which can help uncover the history of environmental change on Mars and lead to our ability to answer fundamental questions about whether Mars was ever home to microbial life or still might be today". Mars has been a primary target for robotic exploration and the search for ancient life in the

Solar System The Solar SystemCapitalization of the name varies. The International Astronomical Union, the authoritative body regarding astronomical nomenclature, specifies capitalizing the names of all individual astronomical objects but uses mixed "Sola ...

. Mars Ice Mapper would complement surface missions on the planet, including the '' Perseverance'' rover that landed on February 18, 2021, following a seven-month journey in space. NASA and the

European Space Agency The European Space Agency (ESA) is a 23-member International organization, international organization devoted to space exploration. With its headquarters in Paris and a staff of around 2,547 people globally as of 2023, ESA was founded in 1975 ...

(ESA) also recently announced they are moving forward with the

Mars sample-return mission A Mars sample-return (MSR) mission is a proposed mission to collect rock and dust samples on Mars and sample-return mission, return them to Earth. Such a mission would allow more extensive analysis than that allowed by onboard sensors. Risks ...

Spacecraft

The CSA would provide the radar instrument, JAXA the spacecraft bus and ASI the communications subsystem for the spacecraft. NASA would be responsible for overall mission management and for providing the launch of the spacecraft. The mission will cost US$185 million. NASA included an illustration of Mars Ice Mapper communicating with three spacecraft in Mars orbit, acting as communications relays back to

Earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to Planetary habitability, harbor life. This is enabled by Earth being an ocean world, the only one in the Solar System sustaining liquid surface water. Almost all ...

. The agency has previously discussed developing a communications satellite network at Mars, perhaps through public-private partnerships, to support Mars Ice Mapper. In March 2024,

Thales Alenia Space Thales Alenia Space () is a joint venture between the French technology corporation Thales Group (67%) and Italian defense conglomerate Leonardo (company), Leonardo (33%). The company is headquartered in Cannes, France. It provides space-based ...

signed a €22 million Phase B1 contract with the

to develop the spacecraft's communications subsystems, following the Phase A contract previously awarded to the company in 2021.

Instrument

The mission concept plans to utilize

Synthetic-aperture radar Synthetic-aperture radar (SAR) is a form of radar that is used to create two-dimensional images or three-dimensional reconstructions of objects, such as landscapes. SAR uses the motion of the radar antenna over a target region to provide fine ...

, based on technology used by the Canadian RADARSAT satellite constellation. The radar has the following technical specification: * Frequency: 900 MHz * Antenna:

Parabolic antenna A parabolic antenna is an antenna that uses a parabolic reflector, a curved surface with the cross-sectional shape of a parabola, to direct the radio waves. The most common form is shaped like a dish and is popularly called a dish antenna or p ...

with 6 meters diameter deployed on orbit * Energy consumption: between 500 and 1000 watts * Polarization: hybrid (circular transmit, dual linear reception) * Two modes: SAR mode and Sounder mode * SAR mode: map swath width 30 km, penetration depth 6 m * Sounder mode: vertical resolution 1 m, along-track resolution: 30 m, across-track resolution: 1,5 km

References

{{Mars spacecraft Space

Mission

Science

Spacecraft

Instrument

See also

References