New Funding for Mars Research
3.23 Million Euros in Additional Funding for Mars Camera Experiment
№ 390/2012 from Dec 20, 2012
Freie Universität Berlin is to receive an additional 3.25 million euros earmarked for processing and analyzing data from its camera experiments on Mars. The money will fund the university’s high resolution stereo camera (HRSC) project for another four years. It is carried out by the Planetary Sciences and Remote Sensing group at the Institute of Geological Sciences. The German national space agency (German Aerospace Center, DLR) approved the funds, which come from the German Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology (BMWi). The camera experiment is part of the Mars Express mission of the European Space Agency (ESA).
The Mars Express spacecraft was launched nearly ten years ago, on June 2, 2003. Since December 2003, the camera has been delivering spectacular image data from the Earth's red neighbor. The main objective of the HRSC experiment in the Mars Express mission is to map the planet and explore it using high-resolution multispectral stereo data.
The researchers at the Planetary Sciences and Remote Sensing group at Freie Universität carry out basic research and are also responsible for the systematic global generation of image data mosaics and terrain models. The group works closely with researchers at ESA and the DLR Institute of Planetary Research in Berlin-Adlershof, who operate the camera and process the HRSC data for evaluation.
Further Information
- Prof. Dr. Stephan van Gasselt, Group Leader, Tel.: +49 (0)30 / 838-70591, Email: Stephan.vanGasselt@fu-berlin.de
- Ms. Heike Balthasar, Geographer, Project Assistance and HRSC PR, Tel.: +49 (0)30 / 838-70555, Email: Heike.Balthasar@fu-berlin.de