Mars planetary geodesy using earth-based observations of Mars landers

Abstract

The potential for earth-based radiometric observations of a network of Mars surface landers to provide accurate determination of the Mars rotational orientation in inertial space is investigated. An error budget is presented for the carrier phase data type and related to system requirements for the surface landers. Differencing the carrier phase observations for a pair of Mars landers can provide extremely high precision due to common-mode error cancellation. Results of a covariance analysis are presented which show that Mars orientation can be determined to better than 10 milliarcsec, corresponding to decimeter distances at the planet surface. Recommendations on how to incorporate these concepts into future Mars missions, such as the Mars Environmental Survey, are discussed.