Analysis of Orbital Sounding in Context with In Situ Ground Penetrating Radar at Jezero Crater, Mars

The RIMFAX ground penetrating radar instrument on board the Mars2020 Perseverance Rover is the first GPR operated on the surface of Mars. Since February 2021, it’s probing the subsurface below the Jezero crater looking for stratigraphic sequence. During one of these acquisitions the penetrating radar detected the presence of ubiquitous strongly reflecting layered sequences extending away from the exposed section of the Séitah formation from the surface to depths up to ~15m. The derived permittivity of 9.0 is consistent with low-porosity rocks with mafic composition. SHARAD has the penetration capabilities for potentially detect the same reflectors, however off-nadir returns might be a limit. We reprocess all the SHARAD observations to enhance the radar resolution, then by coherent and incoherent combination of SHARAD repeat-passes we discriminate and suppress off-nadir returns to examine the near-subsurface regions and looking for weak subsurface returns from the bottom of the Jezero deposit.