Product Search
  • Available via the European Space Agency (ESA)

Online Data Volumes
  • HRSC

Documentation
  • MEX Documents

About the Mission
  • ESA Mission Home Page
  • ESA Mission Summary

About the Science
  • Science Summary

Instrument Team
  • HRSC

ESA Mars Express (MEX)

Europe has waited a long time for the opportunity to mount its own mission to Mars and that dream is now reality. Mars Express, ESA's mission to the red planet launched June 2003, marks the opening of a new era for Europe in planetary exploration. The ESA project is also the start of an innovative way of organising the building blocks that form European space missions.
  The ESA Planetary Science Archive (PSA) is the primary source for all Mars Express data and provides data search and download capabilities. The latest releases of data from the various payload elements, in PDS-compatible formats, can be found on the PSA.
  Through a cooperative agreement between ESA and NASA, Mars Express data may also be distributed by the Planetary Data System (PDS).

MEX Instruments
  • ASPERA – Analyser of Space Plasmas and Energetic Atoms
  • HRSC – High Resolution Stereo Camera
  • MaRS – Mars Radio Science
  • MARSIS – Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionosphere Sounding
  • OMEGA – Observatoire pour la Minéralogie, l'Eau, les Glaces et 'Activité
  • PFS – Planetary Fourier Spectrometer
  • SPICAM – Spectroscopy for Investigation of Characteristics of the Atmosphere of Mars

The primary source for all instrument data is the ESA Planetary Science Archive. The Imaging Node also has copies of the HRSC data. The Geosciences Node, lead node for MEX, has information about locations for copies of other instrument data.
  The High/Super Resolution Stereo Colour Imager (HRSC) is a stereoscopic camera that photographs the Martian surface to reveal detail as small as 2 m. The images are used to produce a geological map showing the location of different minerals and rock types. The HRSC Principal Investigator is Prof. Gerhard Neukum, Freie Universität, Berlin, Germany; please acknowledge the PI when using the data in a publication.

Mission Documents
  • Interface Control Document (ICD) – Mars Express HRSC to the Planetary Science Archive (PSA)
  • Mission Description
  • Spacecraft Description

Instrument and Data Archive Information
  • HRSC
  • Calibrated RDR Dataset Description
  • Map-Projected RDR Dataset Description
  • Instrument Description
  • Instrument Description Special Publication
  • Personnel
  • References
  • RDR Data Product and Archive Volume I