The Mars Global Surveyor

Mars Global Surveyor

The Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) is a planetary geology mission. The Space Physics Research Group is on board to do planetary magnetometry. It will also be exploring the solar wind interaction with Mars, and exploring in detail the Martian magnetic field. MGS will be launched in 1996, and when it reaches Mars, will attain a circular polar orbit at an altitude of about 400 km. UCB involvement in this project consists of the Electron Reflectometer (ER) and the magnetometer. This instrument is a collaboration between Goddard Space Flight Center (Mario Acuna of GSFC is the Principal Investagator for MGS), SSL (which is in charge of the ER), and CESR in France (which did most of the ER fabrication).

The Electron Reflectometer (ER) is an electron detector that uses the principle that electrons are reflected in regions of increasing magnetic field to map the low altitude Martian magnetic field.


Find out more about Mars Global Surveyor:


The following web pages are primarily data-organization and communications tools that support ongoing research by MAG/ER scientists and our colleagues.  Material on internal (password-protected) pages is not yet ready for presentation on the web:
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