Water and dust in the Mars atmosphere from the Rosalind Franklin rover

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The UCL-led PanCam instrument (Coates et al., 2017) on the ESA-Russia Rosalind Franklin rover is due to reach Mars in 2021 following its planned launch in 2020. The PanCam instrument consists of two wide angle cameras (WACs), each of which include an 11-position filter wheel, complemented by a high-resolution camera. Images from the WACs at different wavelengths will provide geological and atmospheric context during the mission. In this project the student will concentrate on the atmospheric science goals of PanCam: water vapour, dust content and variable phenomena. Near sunset on Mars, PanCam will use filters near the 93.6 nm water absorption feature to determine the atmospheric water content along the line of sight. The student will develop models to invert these data into a height profile, and similarly study dust content and dust devils. There will also be an experimental aspect using representative hardware to measure atmospheric effects on Earth.