Removal of instrument signature from Mariner 9 television images of Mars

The Mariner 9 spacecraft was inserted into orbit around Mars in November 1971. The two vidicon camera systems returned over 7300 digital images during orbital operations. The high volume of returned data and the scientific objectives of the Television Experiment made development of automated digital techniques for the removal of camera system-induced distortions from each returned image necessary. This paper describes the algorithms used to remove geometric and photometric distortions from the returned imagery. Enhancement processing of the final photographic products is also described.