The Super Resolution Camera (SRC) is a component of the High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) experiment on the European Space Agency (ESA) Mars Express orbiter.

The SRC is a framing camera consisting of a light weight Maksutov-Cassegrain telescope with a focal length of 975 mm and FOV of 0.543 degrees, and a CCD interline detector with 1024 x 1024 pixels. SRC images are obtained through a broadband detector at a spectral range of 400-900nm. These optics result in a pixel size on ground of 2.3 meters/pixel at periapsis altitude of 250 km.

An absence of thermal equilibrium in the SRC, detected at the onset of operations at Mars, was found to cause an astigmatic deformation of the primary mirror. This results in defocusing (blurring) and "ghost features" in the SRC images, reducing their effective spatial resolution to ~8-10 m/pixel. Atmospheric effects further reduce the quality of many SRC images. However, under ideal conditions, some SRC frames complement NASA Mars Global Surveyor Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) frames.

The SRC is bore-sighted with the HRSC, such that typical imaging results in mosaics registered with the centerline of HRSC nadir images. The SRC can image in 'internal' mode, in which eight 8-bit images are acquired per orbit and in 'connected' mode, in which contiguous image strips of larger areas can be acquired. However, 'connected' mode results in a reduction in resolution, and has been rarely used.

Example

This website contains basic mosaics in sinusoidal projection of the SRC frames acquired for each orbit in which the SRC was active. Most of these mosaics were processed by Dr. David A. Williams of Arizona State University, although some early mosaics were processed by Dr. Stephan van Gasselt of the Free University, Berlin, Germany. The mosaics are presented in two formats: 1) VICAR (NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Video Image Communication And Retrieval software, in which the images were processed); and 2) TIFF (Tagged Image File Format). VICAR images, compatible with NASA Planetary Data System (PDS) and ESA Planetary Science Archive (PSA) readers, contain an image header in each mosaic with information on time of image acquisition, center latitude and longitude, spatial resolution, and processing history. TIFF images, at full resolution, were generated from the VICAR images and can be opened in most image processing software, such as Adobe Photoshop, for conversion into JPEG, PNG, PDF, or other formats for study, printing, and presentation.

For more information on the SRC experiment, see:

Neukum, G., Jaumann, R., and the HRSC Co-Investigator Team, 2004. HRSC: the High Resolution Stereo Camera of Mars Express, in Mars Express: The Scientific Payload, European Space Agency Special Publication 1240, 17-36.

Jaumann,R. and 26 coauthors, 2007. The High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) experiment on Mars Express: Instrument Aspects and Experiment Conduct from Interplanetary Cruise through the Nominal Mission, Planetary and Space Science, 55, 928-952.

Oberst, J., G. Schwarz, T. Behnke, H. Hoffmann, K.-D. Matz, J. Flohrer, H. Hirsch, T. Roatsch, F. Scholten, E. Hauber, B. Brinkmann, R. Jaumann, D. Williams, R. Kirk, T. Duxbury, C. Leu, G. Neukum, 2008, The imaging performance of the SRC on Mars Express, Planetary and SpaceScience, 56, 473-491.

K. Gwinner, F. Scholten, M. Spiegel, R. Schmidt, B. Giese, J. Oberst, R. Jaumann, C. Heipke, G. Neukum. Derivation and Validation of High-Resolution Digital Terrain Models from Mars Express HRSC-Data. Photogrammetric Engineering and Remote Sensing, 75(9), 1127-1141, 2009.

For a brief summary on viewing HRSC and SRC images using the MiniVICAR software (downloadable from the PDS), see MiniVICAR.pfd

To view or download the HRSC fact sheet, see HRSC Fact Sheet

Launched in June 2003, Mars Express has been orbiting Mars since December 25, 2003, and the German-built and operated HRSC has been acquiring data since January 19, 2004.

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