The Venus Emissivity Mapper (VEM) concept

Joern Helbert (1) , Dennis Wendler (1) , Ingo Walter (2) , Thomas Widemann (3) , Emmanuel Marcq (4) , Sabrina Ferrari (5) , Alessandro Maturilli (1) , Nils Mueller (6) , Judit Jaenchen (7) , David Kappel (7) , Anko Boerner (7) , Mario d'Amore (1) , M. Darby Dyar (8) , Gabriele E. Arnold (7) , Suzanne E. Smrekar (6)

1 DLR Institut für Planetenforschung
2 DLR Institute of Optical Sensor Systems
3 LESIA - Laboratoire d'études spatiales et d'instrumentation en astrophysique
4 PLANETO - LATMOS
5 Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra e dell'Ambiente [Pavia]
6 JPL - Jet Propulsion Laboratory
7 DLR - Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt
8 Department of Astronomy of the Mount Holyoke College

Based on experience gained from using the VIRTIS instrument on Venus Express to observe the surface of Venus and the new high temperature laboratory experiments, we have developed the multi-spectral Venus Emissivity Mapper (VEM) to study the surface of Venus. VEM imposes minimal requirements on the spacecraft and mission design and can therefore be added to any future Venus mission. Ideally, the VEM instrument will be combined with a high-resolution radar mapper to provide accurate topographic information, as it will be the case for the NASA Discovery VERITAS mission or the ESA EnVision M5 proposal.

Domaines: Planétologie et astrophysique de la terre [astro-ph.EP]

Joern Helbert, Dennis Wendler, Ingo Walter, Thomas Widemann, Emmanuel Marcq, et al.. The Venus Emissivity Mapper (VEM) concept . Infrared Remote Sensing and Instrumentation XXIV. Proceedings SPIE, Aug 2016, San Diego, United States. Paper 9973-26. ⟨insu-01350535⟩