Mars Rotation Modeling from the NEIGE Radiosciences Experiment

The NEIGE experiment is one of the nine experiments planned for the NetLander mission to Mars. It has two series of scientific objectives: (1) to determine Mars orientation parameters in order to obtain information about the interior of Mars and about the seasonal mass exchange between atmosphere and ice caps; and (2) to determine the total electron content (TEC) and the scintillation of radio signals in order to study the large- and small- scale structure of the ionosphere of Mars. These two sets of information will be derived from measurements of amplitudes and Doppler shifts of radio links at UHF and X-band between the NetLander microstations on the Mars surface and an orbiter and between this orbiter and the Earth (at X-band). We give a detailed description of both the scientific and technical parts of the experiment, as well as results from the simulation of the geodesy part: modeling of nutations, lenght of day and polar motion.