Aiming at thedesigndemandandstructurecharacterof complex surfacetools, ahigh precisionnon-touchinglaserscanningsystembased onpointsampling was studied and developed.
Based on the Phoenix lander, the craft is tasked with giving us a peek beneath the planet's surface, armed with tools that include a geodetic instrument from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which will be used to calculate Mars' rotation axis, a seismic wave sensor and a subsurface heat probe, to measure the planet's internal temperature.
And that case has been bolstered yet again, as scientists studying images from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, a satellite that takes pictures of the Martian surface from orbit using a variety of different tools.