“祝融号”火星车次表层雷达干/水冰探测类比试验

An Analogical Experiment of Mars Rover Penetrating Radar Onboard Chinese“Zhurong”Martian Rover on Dry/Water Ice Detection

2021年5月22日,我国第1辆火星探测车“祝融号”开始在火星表面执行探测任务,其搭载的次表层探测雷达(RoPeR)包含高、低频两个通道,有望在不同的分辨率上揭示着陆区火星次表层结构。其中高频通道采用一对工作带宽为0.45~2.15 GHz的Vivaldi天线阵列,可以采集4种不同天线组合(HH,HV,VH和VV)的全极化雷达回波数据,用于调查着陆区火壤浅层结构并寻找次表层中可能存在的干/水冰。该文通过室内类比试验研究了RoPeR探测和区分干冰与水冰的能力,试验结果表明,干冰和水冰目标具有不同的极化散射特性,并利用H-α极化分解方法初步区分了干冰和水冰。

On May 22,2021,China's first Mars Rover"Zhurong"began its exploration on Mars surface.One of the payloads is Mars Rover Penetrating Radar(RoPeR),which composes of a high frequency channel and a low frequency channel.The scientific object of RoPeR is to reveal the subsurface structures of landing site and detect potentially buried water/dry ice.The high frequency channel is equipped with four Vivaldi antennas working at the frequency band of 0.45~2.15 GHz,which can record radar echo in four different polarization channels.An analogical experiment is performed to analyze the reflection signals from a dry ice and a water ice samples.The experimental results show that dry ice and water ice have different polarization scattering characteristics and H-α polarization decomposition can discriminate between dry ice and water ice.