Getting ready to sound the Martian sub-surface: WISDOM/ExoMars 2020 data processing and lessons learned from the ExoFit 2019 field-trial

Abstract : The ExoMars2020 mission will land a rover on Mars to search for evidence of past and/or present life in the Martian subsurface. The ExoMars Rover will be equipped with a drill able to sample material at depth. The WISDOM polarimetric ground penetrating radar also accommodated on the rover will sound the shallow sub-surface to help selecting the best locations to collect samples at depth. In this paper, we first describe the data processing chain that has been developed in order to rapidly analyze the data collected by WISDOM and also present the results and lessons learned from the operation simulation trial (ExoFit 2019) that took place in Chile in Feb- March 2019.