THE HIGH RESOLUTION STEREO CAMERA (HRSC) FOR MARS 96: RESULTS OF OUTDOOR TESTS 
netric Hauber E., Oberst J., Flohrer J., Sebastian I., Zhang W., Robinson C., Jaumann, R., Neukum G. 
ge of 
nount DLR Berlin-Adlershof, Institute of Planetary Exploration, Rudower Chaussee 5, 12489 Berlin; Germany 
Commission IV, Working Group 5 
"m KEY WORDS: Photogrammetry, Camera, CCD, Pixel, Mapping, Matching, Extraterrestrial, HRSC, Mars. 
m ABSTRACT: 
— In spring 1995, the German High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) for the Russian Mars 96 Mission was subjected to outdoor 
so” tests. The main objective was to verify operation of the camera and to validate the geometric and radiometric performance of 
a the instrument. In addition, the functionality of much of the software developed for the systematic and scientific ground data 
m processing was verified during the analysis of the test data. The tests demonstrate that the HRSC instrument and the processing 
ii software meet or exceed their design goals. 
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1. INTRODUCTION 
In November 1996, the Russian ,,Mars 96" spacecraft will be 
launched carrying the two camera experiments HRSC and 
WAOSS for imaging from orbit (Neukum et al., 1995). 
During the design and development of the cameras, several 
tests have been carried out to verify the camera operation 
and performance. The main goal of the Extended Test Series 
3 (ET3) was to obtain data in outdoor conditions as close to 
reality as possible. The simultaneous operation of the HRSC 
and WAOSS was tested as well as the acquisition and 
analysis of data simulating the operation of the cameras in 
Mars orbit. The radiometric and geometric characteristics of 
the camera were compared with the results of the calibration 
as performed in the laboratory. In this paper, we focus on 
the acquisition and analysis of the HRSC data. 
The image data produced during this test also provided the 
unique opportunity to check the functionality of the ground 
data processing software as developed for pre-processing, 
decalibration, geometric correction, and matching of images 
obtained by the different CCD sensors of the camera. 
2. THE HRSC CAMERA 
The German High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) is one 
of the principal orbiter payload instruments for the Russian 
Mars 96 Mission. The pushbroom scanner is equipped with a 
single 175 mm lens and 9 linear CCD arrays (5 
panchromatic and 4 narrow-band color filters; see Table 1). 
The CCDs are mounted in parallel, perpendicular to 
spacecraft motion, providing nadir, forward, and backward 
looking viewing conditions for each of the arrays, 
respectively. In Mars orbit, image data will be acquired line 
by line as the spacecraft moves. The goal is to take large- 
scale high-resolution (~10-15m/pixel) multispectral stereo 
images at different phase angles. The hardware has been 
tested and calibrated and was delivered to Russia in Oct 1995 
for spacecraft integration. 
1. DATA ACQUISITION 
The Extended Test Series 3 (ET3) for the HRSC camera 
experiment was carried out between March 1 and 17, 1995, 
at two separate camera locations near Lake Constance in 
Southern Germany (where the industrial facilities of the 
HRSC main contractor Dornier GmbH are located) (Table 2). 
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optics: 
focal length (mm) 1735.0 
f number 5.6 
sensors: 
number of sensors 9 
active pixels/sensor 5184 
pixel size 7X7 um 
field of view (FOV): 
FOV per pixel 83^ 
cross-track FOV 11,9° 
stereo angle 18.9° 
spectral ranges: 
outer stereo channels 675490 nm 
nadir channel 675490 nm 
photometry channels 675+90 nm 
multispectral channels 
near infrared 970+45 nm 
green 530+45 nm 
blue 440+45 nm 
red 750+20 nm 
radiometric resolution: 
A/D converter bits 10 
bits entering compression 8 
min. gain 3.5 
max. gain 2528 
operations: 
min. exposure time 2.2 ms 
max. exposure time 54.5 ms 
pixel binning formats 1x1, 2x2, 4x4, 
8x8 
compression factors (factors 1.1... 100 
actually achieved depend on 
scenery) 
max. data output rate 1.6 MB/s 
  
Table 1: Camera parameters of HRSC 
  
In order to mimic flight conditions, the assembly was 
mounted on a slowly rotating table in a way that the line 
sensors were aligned perpendicular to the horizon (Fig. 1). 
The camera was rotated around azimuth angles from 45° to > 
90° with the scan rate of the camera and the rotation rate of 
the table selected to be similar to the viewing conditions 
International Archives of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing. Vol. XXXI, Part B4. Vienna 1996