RECENT 3D IMAGING OF MARTIAN POLAR ICE CAPS USING MARS RECONNAISSANCE ORBITER SHALLOW RADAR (SHARAD) DATA REVEALS DETAILS OF COMPLEX INTERNAL STRUCTURES INCLUDING LAYERING UNCONFORMITIES FAULTING AND PREVIOUSLY UNKNOWN BURIED IMPACT CRATERS (PUTZIG ET AL. ICARUS 2017). 3D DATA VOLUMES BENEFIT GREATLY FROM CUSTOM PROCESSING SIMILAR TO TECHNOLOGY EMPLOYED IN TERRESTRIAL SEISMIC IMAGING. THE ULTIMATE IMAGING GOAL IS TO PROVIDE THE SHARPEST INTERIOR VIEWS THAT ENABLE AN IMPROVED UNDERSTANDING OF THE POLAR DEPOSITIONAL HISTORY BY CLEARLY RESOLVING FINE STRUCTURES ALLOWING NEW AGE CONSTRAINTS FROM INTERNAL CRATERS AND PROVIDING A FIRMER TIE BETWEEN LAYERING AND RECENT MARTIAN CLIMATE HISTORY. 3D PROCESSING APPLIED TO DATE ON SHARAD DATA ONLY SCRATCH THE SURFACE OF THE AVAILABLE IMAGING TOOLBOX AND HAVE BEEN LIMITED BY PRACTICAL CONSIDERATIONS AND SOFTWARE RESOURCES. WE PROPOSE TO TAKE 3D SHARAD DATA PROCESSING TO THE NEXT LEVEL EMPLOYING STATEOF- THE-ART TECHNOLOGY CAPABLE OF INCREASING THE IMAGING ACCURACY AND RESOLUTION. WE PLAN TO UPDATE RAW DATA PREPROCESSING WITH TECHNOLOGY RECENTLY DEVELOPED BY MEMBERS OF OUR TEAM TO YIELD AN OPTIMIZED 3D DATA VOLUME AND GENERATE NEW 3D HIGH-RESOLUTION IMAGE VOLUMES FOR BOTH PLANUM BOREUM AND PLANUM AUSTRALE. CURRENTLY CONVENTIONALLY PROCESSED SHARAD 2D RADARGRAMS ARE BINNED AND INTERPOLATED AT THE ORBITAL LEVEL FOLLOWED BY DOWNWARD CONTINUATION TO THE VICINITY OF THE ICE CAP (FOSS ET AL. THE LEADING EDGE 2017). THIS PROCEDURE LIMITS THE OBTAINABLE IMAGING RESOLUTION SINCE BIN SIZES (475M X 475M) ARE BASED ON THE RADARGRAMS WHICH ARE SAMPLED COARSER THAN THE DESIRED RESOLUTION NEEDED BY THE COMPLEX INTERIOR STRUCTURES. MOREOVER IMAGING WAS PERFORMED USING ALGORITHMS STRICTLY APPROPRIATE FOR LATERALLY INVARIANT MEDIA WHICH SACRIFICE ACCURACY FOR SPEED. WE PLAN TO MODIFY THE PROCESSING SEQUENCE AS FOLLOWS: 1. RE-DATUM THE SHARAD DATA FROM ORBIT DIRECTLY TO THE TOPOGRAPHY DEFINED BY THE MARS ORBITAL LASER ALTIMETER (MOLA) WITHOUT SUBSAMPLING OR INTERPOLATION. THIS BETTER PRESERVES DATA INTEGRITY FACILITATES HIGHER RESOLUTION AND ACCOUNTS FOR THE SHARAD ANTENNA PATTERN. 2. CORRECT FOR TRAVELTIME IONOSPHERIC DISTORTIONS ON THE MOLA SURFACE INSTEAD OF DOING SO AT THE ORBIT LEVEL. THIS REDUCES COMPUTING COSTS AND INCREASES THE RELIABILITY OF TRAVELTIME CALCULATIONS WITHOUT REQUIRING CROSS-CORRELATION BETWEEN DATA ACQUIRED ON INTERSECTING TRACKS. 3. FOCUS THE DATA RELOCATED TO THE MOLA SURFACE USING IMAGING TECHNIQUES THAT FULLY ACCOUNT FOR LATERAL VARIATION OF THE RADAR VELOCITY E.G. REVERSE-TIME MIGRATION (RTM). THIS ADVANCED IMAGING TECHNOLOGY IMPROVES BOTH SUBSURFACE POSITIONING OF RADAR PULSES AND VERTICAL RESOLUTION. 4. REMOVE TRACK-SPACING ARTIFACTS FROM THE MIGRATED IMAGES USING INVERSION TECHNIQUES E.G. LEAST-SQUARES RTM. THIS TECHNIQUE ELIMINATES THE POINT-SPREAD FUNCTION OF THE ACQUISITION ARRAY AND COULD IMPOSE SPARSITY CONSTRAINTS ON THE IMAGE FURTHER ENHANCING ITS RESOLUTION. 5. USE WAVEFIELD TOMOGRAPHY TO FOCUS DIFFRACTIONS GENERATED BY SHARP STRUCTURAL FEATURES AS A MEANS TO ENHANCE THE VELOCITY MODEL USED FOR 3D WAVEFIELD IMAGING. THIS STEP CONSTRAINS SPATIAL VELOCITY VARIATION LEADING TO IMPROVED LATERAL AND VERTICAL RESOLUTION IN THE IMAGE VOLUMES. THE PROPOSED METHODS HERE LEVERAGE IMAGING TECHNOLOGY RECENTLY PROPOSED BY THE PI (SAVA&ASPHAUG ADVANCES IN SPACE RESEARCH 2018A B). OUR TEAM INCLUDES THE DIRECTOR OF THE CENTER FOR WAVE PHENOMENA (CWP) AT THE COLORADO SCHOOL OF MINES (CSM) WITH MANY YEARS OF EXPERIENCE DEVELOPING AND APPLYING THE PROPOSED IMAGING TECHNIQUES. SOFTWARE NEEDED FOR THE PROJECT EXISTS OR WILL BE DEVELOPED AT CSM AND MADE AVAILABLE TO THE COMMUNITY AS OPEN-SOURCE (WWW.AHAY.ORG). THE CENTER COMPUTING RESOURCES WILL BE MADE AVAILABLE AT NO ADDITIONAL COST TO THE PROJECT. OUR CO-INVESTIGATORS HAVE EXTENSIVE EXPERIENCE WITH SHARAD 3D PROCESSING AND SIMILAR APPLICATIONS TO TERRESTRIAL SEISMIC DATA.