Emirates Mars Mission Science Closure Strategy

The 2020 Emirates Mars Mission (EMM) is focused on understanding the patterns of mass and energy transport within the Martian atmosphere and the processes that drive them, both laterally and vertically, and how they influence rates of atmospheric escape. EMM has three separate science objectives, addressed using synoptic observations in the visible, infrared and ultraviolet. The EMM science team has identified several science analyses necessary to achieve our objectives.

Objective A is to characterize the state of the Martian lower atmosphere on a global spatial scale and across diurnal, sub-seasonal, and seasonal temporal scales. As part of this process, we will (i) create multidimensional (spatial, diurnal) snapshots of the global atmosphere every 10 days, (ii) compare ice and dust column-integrated optical depths derived independently from visible and infrared observations, (iii) correlate of the EMM observations to GCM results and (and other relevant data sets, and (iv) perform meteorological data assimilation with EMM data.

Objective B is to correlate rates of thermal and photochemical escape with conditions in the collisional Martian atmosphere. Therefore we will (i) compare conditions in the lower and upper atmosphere simultaneously, (ii) compare escape rate variations with thermospheric conditions, and (iii) study the effects of episodic events such as dust storms, solar flares, solar energetic particle, coronal mass ejections, polar cap changes and dust deposition/removal events.

Objective C is to characterize the spatial structure and variability of hydrogen and oxygen in the Martian exosphere. Therefore we will (i) make comparisons of exospheric O and H densities derived from FUV observations with 3-D models for the Martian O and H coronae, (ii) derive O and H escape rates from these density profiles, and (iii) compare these derived escape rates to model predictions.

Each of these scientific analyses requires a tailored combination of EMM and non-EMM data products, data analysis tools and physics-based models. Only with these unique combinations of data and models will we understand the physical processes driving atmospheric structure, dynamics, the connections between the lower and upper atmospheres, and how these connections influence atmospheric escape.