The @European Space Agency (ESA) announced in November 2023 that the Mars-Magnetosphere ATmosphere Ionosphere and Space-weather SciencE (M-MATISSE) mission is one of three concepts chosen for a 3-year Phase A study. This selection brings M-MATISSE one step closer to potentially being launched as ESA’s seventh medium-sized mission (M7) in 2037 under the Voyage 2050 plan.
Led by the @University of Leicester, M-MATISSE aims to revolutionize our understanding of the complex interactions between Mars’ magnetosphere, ionosphere, thermosphere, and the solar wind. The mission will consist of two orbiters, affectionately named Henri and Marguerite after the French artist Henri Matisse and his daughter, which will provide the first global characterization of the Martian system dynamics at all altitudes.
The M-MATISSE consortium is a large, organized, and experienced international team supported by the @UK Space Agency (UKSA) and other European agencies, as well as Japanese and American partners. M-MATISSE two orbiters with focused, tailored, high-heritage payloads will observe the plasma environment from the surface to space through coordinated simultaneous observations. It will utilize a unique 3-vantage point observational perspective, with the combination of in-situ measurements by both orbiters and remote observations of the lower atmosphere and ionosphere by radio crosstalk between them.
M-MATISSE, if selected, has the potential to provide the first global characterization of the dynamics of the Martian system at all altitudes, to understand how the atmosphere dissipates the incoming energy from the solar wind, including radiation, as well as how different surface processes are affected by space weather activity.