The PanCam Calibration Target (PCT) and multispectral image processing for the ExoMars 2018 mission

The Panoramic Camera (PanCam) instrument for the ESA/NASA 2018 ExoMars mission is designed to be the 'eyes' of the Mars rover and is equipped with two wide angle multispectral cameras (WACs) from MSSL, and a focusable High Resolution Camera (HRC) from DLR. To achieve its science role within the ExoMars mission, the PanCam will generate terrain reflectance spectra to help identify the mineralogy of the Martian surface, and generate true-colour images of the Martian environment. The PanCam Calibration Target (PCT) is an essential component for the science operations of the PanCam instrument. Its purpose is to allow radiometric calibration and to support geometric calibration check-out of the PanCam instrument during the mission. Unlike other camera calibration targets flown to Mars, the PCT target regions are being made from stained glass. The paper describes the work undertaken during the early build and testing of the PCT, together with results from the baseline algorithms that have been designed and implemented to process the multispectral PanCam images.