OASIS

Presentation Abstract

Title	The Ionosphere Of Mars: A Community White Paper For The Planetary Decadal Survey
Author Block	Paul Withers¹, J. Espley², R. Lillis³, D. Morgan⁴, White Paper on Mars Ionosphere Group ¹Boston University, ²NASA/GSFC, ³University of California Berkeley, ⁴University of Iowa.
Abstract	The MAVEN Scout mission, scheduled for launch in 2013, will address many, but not all, of the outstanding questions concerning the ionosphere of Mars. This white paper will describe important questions that MAVEN's nominal mission will not answer and identify measurements and instruments that can answer these questions. The areas covered by these questions include solar cycle variations, the state of the bottomside ionosphere, the effects of crustal magnetic fields, and dynamical coupling between the neutral atmosphere and ionosphere. Potential measurements and instruments include a surface package consisting of a magnetometer, airglow imager, ionosonde and riometer, upstream monitoring of the Sun simultaneous with ionospheric measurements, and spacecraft-to-spacecraft radio occultations. One of the distinctive features of the Mars Exploration Program is how later missions build upon the discoveries of earlier missions. We suggest that an aeronomy constellation mission should be studied as a potential response to the anticipated discoveries of MAVEN.