MRO Shallow Subsurface Radar (SHARAD)

ODE: Mars

Mission: MRO

Instrument: Shallow Radar

PDS Geosciences Node: PDS Source Information

Find MRO SHARAD data in Mars ODE: Product Search • Map Search

The Shallow Subsurface Radar (SHARAD) instrument probes the subsurface using radar waves using a 15-25 MHz frequency band in order to get the desired high depth resolution. The instrument has a horizontal resolution of between 0.3 and 3 kilometers (between 2/10 of a mile and almost 2 miles) horizontally and 15 meters (about 50 feet) vertically in free space (better than 10 m in Mars subsurface). Subsurface features will have to be of the order of these dimensions for them to be observable.

SHARAD team in Italy offers two data sets, the Experiment Data Record (EDR) data set and the Reduce Data Record (RDR) data set. EDRs are raw radar data from the spacecraft. EDRs are processed into RDRs. Most users will want to use the RDRs. A new SHARAD derived data set, SHARAD Radargram data is processed by the U.S. members of the SHARAD team. This Radargram data set differs from the original SHARAD RDR data set in that a different set of processing parameters were used, the details of which are described in the Radargram Processing Document in the DOCUMENT directory of the archive. SHARAD 3D radar dataset contains three-dimensional volumes of radar sounding data for Mars collected by the MRO SHARAD instrument over many SHARAD tracks crossing a given projected area. Information about SHARAD products can be found in:

• Access to SHARAD Archives

• SHARAD RDR Product Interface Specification (PDF)

• SHARAD EDR Product Interface Specification (PDF)

• SHARAD Archive Software Interface Specification (SIS) (PDF)

• SHARAD Radargram Processing Document (PDF)

• The User's Guide, 3-D Processing of SHARAD Data - An Overview for Planetary Data System Users.

• Information specifically on the 3D SHARAD Radargrams