MEETING REPORTS and SUPPORTING DOCUMENTS:
Mars Visible/Infrared Spectral Community

This site contains workshop reports for the Mars visible-infrared spectral community, with a focus on surface studies.
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Visible-Infrared Spectroscopy of Mars:
LABORATORY AND FIELD COMMUNITY DATA SETS

DECEMBER 2002 COMMUNITY WORKSHOP REPORT

SUMMARY
Interpretations of visible-infrared spectral data sets of Mars build a critical foundation for geologic and climatic interpretations, and landing site selection. However, an effective response to the upcoming influx of Mars data will require well-rounded experience in field spectroscopy and strong public spectral libraries. An open community meeting was held to address gaps in those areas.

Field Experience. Researchers need to gain experience in the field, because laboratory studies cannot replicate or uncover all the spectral and instrumentation complexities that are present outside. This significant step is analogous to the critical experience gained through early rover field testing.
Field experience should be supported in order to:
--train interpreters and operators for Mars data and instruments
--test ideas and aid in tying orbital/aircraft views to surface/rover/lander views
--build experience in issues such as detection limits, uncertainties, measurement protocols, calibration, interpretation techniques, atmospheric compensation, and theory.

Public spectral data bases.. These provide a foundation for interpretation of remotely acquired data. The two previous community workshop reports noted a gap in motivating and facilitating the transfer of data into the public domain. A primary roadblock is the complexity of transferring and accessing data within the NASA Planetary Data System. The PDS should implement a user-friendly interface to aid the transfer private laboratory and telescopic spectral data bases, and provide a means for easy access. This will not include field and airborne data bases because they are considerably more complex to manage.




Infrared Spectroscopy of Mars:
FROM THE THEORY AND THE LABORATORY TO FIELD OBSERVATIONS

June 2002 Community Workshop Report

An open community workshop was held at LPI to address the question:
What terrestrial theoretical, laboratory, and field studies are most needed to best support timely interpretations of current and planned visible/infrared spectrometer data sets, in light of the Mars Program goals?

Summary. The two most critical gaps are in coordinated end-to-end field testing and in libraries of spectroscopic data. Three related gaps are in data from terrestrial sites to aid TES and CRISM interpretations, lack of high quality development data to support landers, and delays in funding owing to lack of coordination between R&A proposal dues dates and mission data releases.

The report contains detailed recommendations.
MEPAG presentation of the workshop recommendations



INFRARED SPECTROSCOPY OF MARS: WHAT NEXT?

June 1999 Community Workshop Report

Members of the Mars infrared spectral community met to discuss what critical gaps may exist:
1) after the successful completion of planned measurements of Mars; and
2) in research programs to support current and planned data sets.

Summary. Participants concluded that the most critical gap is in very high information content spectra of targeted regions. Experience gained from spectral data sets of Mars and Earth has shown that an unambiguous interpretation requires very high information content. High information content is obtained by measuring with broad spectral range, high spectral resolution, and high signal to noise ratio.
This workshop occurred prior to the selection of the 2005 CRISM.



SUPPORTING DOCUMENTS:



TERRESTRIAL TESTING / FIELD EXPERIENCE

Information on sites and instruments submitted for the terrestrial testing discussion at the Dec, 2002 community meeting.




SPECTRAL LIBRARIES

Transfer of spectral data into the public domain:
Supporting documents for transferring laboratory spectral data into the public domain:
1. Carle Pieters
2. Ray Arvidson
3. Army TEC


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