Acronyms

CETP: Centre d'études des Environnements Terrestre et Planétaire
EDLS: Entry, Descent and Landing System
IAS: Institut d'Astrophysique Spatiale
IPGP: Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris
MEMS: Micro Electro Mechanical System
SA: Service d'Aéronomie

Glossary

Optical thickness: measure without unit which characterizes the transparency of the atmosphere. Notes that the lower is the visibility, the greater is the optical thickness.
Tide (signal): The tide phenomenon turns up each time two celestial bodies - planets, galaxies... - have sufficient mass and are sufficiently near to be gravitationally attracted one by the other. The resulting force, force generating the tide, can participate to the deformation of a portion of the body considered, at least if this portion is effectively composed of relatevely deformable materials (it is the case with the oceans on Earth) and possesses a great mass.
Nutation: little periodical movement done by the rotation axis of a body having a gyroscopic movement, around the mean position of this axis.
Permittivity: Describes the polarization power of a medium subjected to an electric field.
Precession: conic movement described around a mean position by the axis of a body which has a gyroscopic movement.
Regolith: Mantle of rough fragments resulting of underlying rocks fragmentation.
Sol = 1 martian day that is to say 24 h 40 min