LaRa, an X-band coherent transponder ready to fly
(2022) Europlanet Science Congress 2022 — Location: Granada (18.September.2022)
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- Authors
Dehant, Véronique 
- et. al.
- Abstract
- LaRa is a radio-science instrument that is ready to fly and was part of the science payload of the surface platform of the ExoMars mission. Now that ExoMars is suspended, LaRa will need to find another mission to go to the Martian system (or elsewhere in the inner Solar System). The LaRa instrument consists of an X-band transponder accompanied by a set of three antennas and three RF cables. This instrument is designed to measure with a couple of mHz of accuracy the Doppler shift induced by the variations in Mars rotation and orientation on a direct-to-Earth round-trip radio link. The main scientific objective of the LaRa experiment is to constrain the interior structure of Mars by precisely measuring the precession and nutations of the planet’s spin axis. LaRa’s measurements can also be used to refine the rotation model of Mars, including the polar motion, and infer constraints on the dynamic of its atmosphere.
- Affiliations
Citations
Le Maistre, S., Dehant, V., Baland, R. M., Beuthe, M., & et al. (2022). LaRa, an X-band coherent transponder ready to fly. EPSC Abstracts, 16(EPSC2022-1169), 2 p. https://doi.org/10.5194/epsc2022-1169 (Original work published 2022)