International Mars Ice Mapper Mission: A step forward to map near-surface water ice and its atmospheric interactions and to prepare for future robotic and human surface science

The International Mars Ice Mapper (I-MIM) mission concept has been conceived by the Italian, Canadian, Japanese, and US Space Agencies partners (ASI, CSA, JAXA, and NASA) with the primary goal of recognizing ice deposits and accessible water in the upper 0-10 m of the Martian subsurface, characterizing its overburden, and studying subsurface/surface/atmospheric exchanges. I-MIM Measurement Definition Team (MDT): The Agency Partners competitively selected the MDT to define the core measurements for the mission’s primary payload, to suggest possible augmentations, and to develop a concept of operations. The MDT released a Final Report [1], concluding that the mission’s primary instrument, a polarimetric Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) centred at 930 MHz, would satisfy initial mission objectives, while recommending that the concept team consider the inclusion of complementary payloads identified as highest priority: a Very High Frequency (VHF) radar sounder (100-200 MHz), a High-Resolution optical imager, and a sub-millimetre sounder for atmospheric profiling to expand the capabilities of I-MIM to undertake high-priority science investigations. Members of the MDT subsequently developed traceability matrices for these highest priority instruments in an addendum to the MDT Report [2].