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MENCA experiment aboard India’s Mars Orbiter Mission

2015; Indian Academy of Sciences; Volume: 109; Issue: 6 Linguagem: Inglês

10.18520/cs/v109/i6/1106-1113

0011-3891

Anil Bhardwaj, S. V. Mohankumar, Tirtha Pratim Das, P. Pradeepkumar, P. Sreelatha, B. Sundar, Amarnath Nandi, Dinakar Prasad Vajja, M. B. Dhanya, Neha Naik, Gogulapati Supriya, R. Satheesh Thampi, G. Padma Padmanabhan, Vipin K. Yadav, A. V. Aliyas,

Isotope Analysis in Ecology

The Mars Exospheric Neutral Composition Analyser (MENCA) aboard the Indian Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) is a quadrupole mass spectrometer-based experiment. Making use of the highly elliptical and low inclination (~150°) orbit of MOM, MENCA will conduct in situ measurements of the composition and radial distribution of the Martian neutral exosphere in the 1–300 amu mass range in the equatorial and low latitudes of Mars. The functionality of MENCA has been tested during the Earth-bound and heliocentric phases of MOM before its operation in the Martian orbit. This article describes the scientific objectives, instrument details, design and development, test and evaluation, and calibration of the MENCA instrument.