MERTIS: the thermal infrared imaging spectrometer onboard of the Mercury Planetary Orbiter

The MERTIS instrument is a thermal infrared imaging spectrometer onboard of ESA’s cornerstone mission BepiColombo to Mercury. MERTIS has four goals: the study of Mercury’s surface composition, identification of rock-forming minerals, mapping of the surface mineralogy, and the study of the surface temperature variations and thermal inertia. MERTIS will provide detailed information about the mineralogical composition of Mercury’s surface layer by measuring the spectral emittance in the spectral range from 7-14 μm at high spatial and spectral resolution. Furthermore MERTIS will obtain radiometric measurements in the spectral range from 7-40 μm to study the thermo-physical properties of the surface material. The MERTIS detector is based on an uncooled micro-bolometer array providing spectral separation and spatial resolution according to its 2-dimensional shape. The operation principle is characterized by intermediate scanning of the planet surface and three different calibration targets – free space view and two on-board black body sources. In the current project phase, the MERTIS Qualification Model (QM) is under a rigorous testing program. Besides a general overview of the instrument principles, the papers addresses major aspects of the instrument design, manufacturing and verification.