Mars planetary mapping pilot project

Introduction: In February 2009 a new Mars Planetary Mapping Pilot Project for the European Space Agency (ESA/ESTEC) commenced, which will last for one year. It involves a collaboration between the British Geological Survey, TNO/Deltares Geological Survey of The Netherlands, Mullard Space Science Laboratory of the University College London, and ITC, the International Institute for Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation, The Netherlands. Its purpose is to demonstrate how specialist skills developed by Europe’s geological surveys and academic planetary scientists for terrestrial datasets, can be applied to ESA planetary datasets for Mars. The main deliverables from this contract will involve:
1. A prototype data-management system (Fig.1) which will store all relevant data and meta-data, and which will allow planetary scientists to discover, explore and access them through a variety of web interfaces in map and query forms. Links will be provided to other planetary datasets and web-map servers.
2. Example Information products (Fig.2) on a range of themes, such as digital elevation models from HRSC stereo images, and their derivatives such as slope, aspect, roughness; mineral maps showing surface mineralogy derived from hyperspectral OMEGA data.
3. Modern visualisation and analysis tools developed for terrestrial geological mapping applications, will be applied to the Mars data, as part of a documented workflow. This will involve both stereo immersive visualization environments and simplified versions for viewing via the web.
4. Detailed geological mapping and 3D modelling will be applied to a demonstration area. Following an initial appraisal and discussion amongst project partners with ESA, this will be in the Nili Fossae region (Fig.3).
This paper will present the background to the project and its initial results, in order to seek engagement with the wider planetary science community on this important topic. The results of this project will be demonstrated to ESA and representative members of the planetary community at a final meeting next year.