MARS GLOBAL SURVEYOR ORBITER RADIO SCIENCE DERIVED ELECTRON DENSITY DATA PAGE
Electron-density vertical profiles derived from MGS Radio Science occultation measurements
















Above are shown examples of the MGS Radio Science derived electron number density profiles derived from radio science occultation measurements of the martian atmosphere (left two figures). The 5600 profiles within the archive span the time period from late December 1998 (Ls 74, MY 23) through early June 2005 (Ls 227, MY27). The latitudes of these derived profiles as a function of Ls are shown in the figure on the right above.

The data contained within the MGS ELECTRON DENSITY PROFILE PDS archive mors_1102 are provided in either the ALTITUDE or PROFILE folders within the DATA folder. Within both the PROFILE and ALTITUDE folders a user will find subfolders containing ~100 drag passes of data, with each drag pass consisting of a single ASCII file. For instance, the data presented in the left figure above are from the L2P306.TAB file located within the P300_399 folder within the PROFILE folder, while the data presented in the right-side figure above are located in the L3P306.TAB file located in the P300_399 folder located within the ALTITUDE folder. RAW MRO accelerometer data are also available within their own folder below the DATA folder. Very similar derived spacecraft aerobraking data, with archive structures very similar to this MRO aerobraking archive, are also available from the MGS mission (mgsa_0002) and also the Mars Odyssey mission (odya_0001).

For information about the Mars Global Surveyor Radio Science electron density profile data set, click here
For information about the Mars Global Surveyor mission, click here
For information about the Mars Global Surveyor Radio Science experiment/instrument, click here