Mars Express

In­sight in­to the his­to­ry of the Mar­tian cli­mate

DLR's High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) on board ESA's Mars Express spacecraft has been mapping Mars in unprecedented resolution, in three dimensions and in colour since 2004. Its data are an essential resource for current and future Mars research. The insights obtained during the course of the mission have massively changed our understanding of the Red Planet's geological development.

The European Space Agency's (ESA) Mars Express mission was launched by a Soyuz/Fregat rocket on 2 June 2003 at 19:45 Central European Summer Time from the Russian space centre at Baikonur, Kazakhstan. The mission supplies Scientists with important new data about the geology, mineralogy and atmosphere of Mars. The search for traces of earlier Mars life, one of the most ambitious goals of the project, provides a large challenge for the scientists.

DLR is making important contributions to Mars Express. The High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) was developed by DLR's Institute of Space Research in Berlin. The camera is mapping Mars in three dimensions in the highest-ever resolution.

The striking landscape of Hydraotes Chaos on Mars
The first HRSC image, which was unveiled to the public in January 2004, showed the Hydraotes Chaos region - a labyrinth of mesas created by the eroding effect of masses of water draining away and ground collapsing to form great voids. Since then, the Mars Express probe has orbited Mars about 19,000 times at different altitudes. As a result, global coverage has seen constant improvement, with image resolutions of down to 12 metres per pixel. The image here shows a view recently acquired by HRSC from the equator looking north over the striking landscape of Hydraotes Chaos with its more than 2000-metre-high table-mountain outliers in the foreground. The outflow channels of Simud Valles (left) and Tiu Valles (right), which are up to 80 kilometres wide and more than 1000 kilometres long, extend as far as the horizon.
Credit:

ESA/DLR/FU Berlin, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO.

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Background articles

The Mars Ex­press mis­sion

Mars Express opens a new era of intensive and important Mars research.

Data and scientific objectives

Findings from previous Mars missions suggest that Mars was once a warm, wet planet before undergoing a climate shift around 3.5 billion years ago.

Sci­en­tif­ic high­lights of the Mars Ex­press mis­sion

This success story began with the launch of a Soyuz carrier rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan that sent the Mars Express spacecraft on its journey to our planetary neighbour.

HRSC – High Res­o­lu­tion Stereo Cam­era

The High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) is Germany's most important contribution to the European Space Agency (ESA) Mars Express mission.

How HRSC works

HRSC is a one-of-a-kind camera system in planetary research. It is the first digital stereo camera capable of delivering multispectral information, as well as being equipped with an extremely high-resolution imaging channel that is essentially equivalent to a ‘magnifying glass’.

Mars

Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun, and Earth's outer neighbour. It is similar to Earth in many ways, especially in the geological processes that formed its surface.

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Contact

Daniela Tirsch

Principal Investigator HRSC
German Aerospace Center (DLR)
Institute of Space Research
Rutherfordstraße 2, 12489 Berlin

Ulrich Köhler

German Aerospace Center (DLR)
Institute of Space Research
Public relations
Rutherfordstraße 2, 12489 Berlin