RIME: Radar for Icy Moon Exploration

Author

Bruzzone, Lorenzo ; Plaut, J.J. ; Alberti, G. ; Blankenship, Donald D. ; Bovolo, Francesca ; Campbell, Bruce A. ; Ferro, A. ; Gim, Y. ; Kofman, W. ; Komatsu, G. ; McKinnon, W. ; Mitri, G. ; Orosei, R. ; Patterson, G.W. ; Plettemeier, Dirk ; Seu, Roberto

Author_Institution

DISI, Univ. of Trento, Trento, Italy

fYear

2013

fDate

21-26 July 2013

Firstpage

3907

Lastpage

3910

Abstract

This paper presents the Radar for Icy Moons Exploration (RIME) instrument, which has been selected as payload for the JUpiter Icy moons Explorer (JUICE) mission. JUICE is the first Large-class mission chosen as part of the ESA´s Cosmic Vision 2015-2025 programme, and is aimed to study Jupiter and to investigate the potentially habitable zones in the Galilean icy satellites. RIME is a radar sounder optimized for the penetration of Ganymede, Europa and Callisto up to a depth of 9 km in order to allow the study of the subsurface geology and geophysics of the icy moons and detect possible subsurface water. In this paper we present the main science goals of RIME, the main technical challenges for its development and for its operations, as well as the expected scientific returns.

Keywords

Jupiter; extraterrestrial life; planetary satellites; planetary surfaces; radar astronomy; space vehicles; water; Callisto; ESA Cosmic Vision 2015-2025 programme; Europa; Galilean icy satellites; Ganymede; H₂O; Jupiter Icy moons Explorer mission; RIME radar sounder; Radar for Icy Moons Exploration instrument; depth 9 km; icy moon geophysics; potentially habitable zones; subsurface geology; subsurface water detection; Abstracts; Geology; Instruments; Liquids; Moon; Radar; Receiving antennas; Jovian system; geophysics; icy moons; planetary exploration; radar sounder; subsurface geology;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium (IGARSS), 2013 IEEE International

Conference_Location

Melbourne, VIC

ISSN

2153-6996

Print_ISBN

978-1-4799-1114-1

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/IGARSS.2013.6723686

Filename

6723686