- Original Caption Released with Image:
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This animation portrays the unfolding of all three booms making up the
antenna for the radar instrument on the European Space Agency's Mars
Express orbiter. The first boom was deployed in May 2005. The other two
were deployed in June 2005. The animation is based on calculated
simulations of how each boom could have extended itself from the folded
position in which it had been stored. Now the instrument is ready to begin
its work of looking below Mars's surface for buried features, possibly
including water-bearing layers, and examining the ionized layer at the
top of Mars' atmosphere. The instrument, Mars Advanced Radar for
Subsurface and Ionosphere Sounding, was jointly funded by NASA and the
Italian Space Agency. It was developed by the University of Rome, Italy,
in partnership with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. The
University of Iowa, Iowa City, built the transmitter for the instrument,
JPL built the receiver, and Astro Aerospace, Carpinteria, Calif., built
the antenna.
- Image Credit:
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NASA/JPL/ESA
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