Surface Stereo Imager (SSI)

See also Camera Overview

See also Imaging Product Naming

The SSI is a stereo pair of science cameras at 15.09 cm baseline separation (23.96 mrad average toe-in for right and left) mounted at the top of the mast with a range of motion between 89.8 deg and –92.1 deg elevation and 355.4 degrees of azimuth (with 4.6 deg dead zone). Narrow-angle optics provide an

angular resolution of 0.24 mrad/pixel. The SSI will be used to image the surface and sky of Mars around the landing site. The images will be used primarily for Science analysis. SSI images will also support targeting of trench digs by instruments on the RA, providing larger scale perspectives of the work areas than the RA-mounted RAC imaging instrument.

SSI optics characteristics useful in the analysis of EDR and RDR products are described in Table 1 below:

Table 1 - SSI Optics Characteristics

SSI has a dual 12-position filter wheel. For the Flight Model, 15 of the 24 filters provide color imaging capability in 13 unique wavelengths from 445 to 1001 nm, two provide color at deck focus, one provides polarization at 750 nm, and the remaining six have neutral density coatings to provide direct solar imaging capability. The spectral bandwidths are described for the Flight Model in Table 2 and for the Engineering Model in Table 3 below:

Table 2 - SSI Spectral Filters (Flight Model)

Table 3 - SSI Spectral Filters (Engineering Model)

Source: Camera EDR/RDR SIS