Remote LIBS Mars Instrument Development Projects
As early as 1991, Los Alamos recognized
the potential of LIBS for future space exploration (Blacic et al. 1992;
Kane et al. 1992) and initiated a study of this application. Based
on this preliminary work, an operating LIBS stand-off analysis instrument
was demonstrated at the 1992 World Space Congress (Washington DC).
This was followed by additional research into LIBS for application to Mars
exploration (Knight et al. 2000) to benchmark capabilities in more detail.
Starting in 1998, our group was funded
to develop LIBS for future use from a rover or lander on a planetary surface
to remotely obtain elemental information on rocks and soils within 20 meters
of the instrument. The original MIDP LIBS project focused on using
mostly off-the-shelf components to demonstrate the feasibility and utility
of a rover-based LIBS instrument. Our field portable instrument was
mechanically integrated onto the K9 rover testbed. Testing of this
instrument is described in Wiens et al. (2002). Further development
led to the replacement of the original spectrograph with an off-the-shelf
echelle spectrograph covering the full range of 200-1000 nm at a resolution
of ~0.2 nm.
The remote LIBS MIDP work was renewed
in 2003, with the focus directed to development of optimized custom components
and flight qualifying these components. In particular, the original
echelle spectrograph, which was f/11, is being replaced by a far faster
custom f/3 version, improving the light collection by nearly two orders
of magnitude. A custom detector is being outfitted to this spectrograph.
Our colleagues in France are developing and prototyping a greatly improved
telescope design and a laser designed specifically for the environmental
constraints of flight.
K9 rover in the field
Photo courtesy of NASA Ames
