The International Space Analogue Rockstore (ISAR) for in situ instrument testing: relevance for Martian missions.

In order to prepare the next in situ space missions we have created a collection of analogue rocks for calibrating and testing present and future space flight instruments. This collection is called the International Space Analogue Rockstore (ISAR) and is hosted at the CNRS and the Observatoire des Sciences de l’Univers en Region Centre (OSUC), in Orleans, France. In the context of the present MSL mission and to the future ExoMars-2018 mission, the first samples where chosen for their relevance to Mars. These samples are available for calibrating and testing space instrumentation and are now being used by several instruments on ExoMars and MSL. Use of the same suite of samples to calibrate all the instruments of a single mission will greatly increase their complementarity and thus to improve the interpretation of the analyses carried out in situ.