See Also
Combined Raman/LIBS spectrometer for Exomars at ESA
Raman spectroscopy goes to Mars (Spectroscopy Europe)
The ESA ExoMars mission will be the next European mission to Mars. It consists of a large rover with a dedicated payload, aimed at detecting possible signs of past/present life forms on Mars, as well as improving our knowledge of our neighbouring planet. An international team, under the lead of TNO, is developing a combined Raman/LIBS spectrometer Elegant Bread Board to demonstrate instrument feasibility.
Artist impression of the ESA Exomars lander
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The ExoMars mission is part of the ESA Aurora programme. The combined Raman/LIBS instrument is being developed for the Pasteur payload on the ExoMars lander. To limit resource requirements, Raman and Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS) will be integrated into a single instrument, sharing many hardware commonalities. The instrument consists of: an internal optical head, connected to a spectrometer via an optical fibre and electronics for instrument control. An external optical head, for in-situ analysis of surface samples, will be mounted onto the rover's robotic arm, also connected to the spectrometer via an optical fibre. The function of the optical heads is twofold: sample illumination and science signal collection. The Raman/LIBS instrument will be located inside the rover's analytical laboratory; its objective will be to analyse the samples collected from above and below the surface of the planet, with high accuracy. Raman spectroscopy is dedicated to molecular analysis of organics and minerals; whereas LIBS spectroscopy provides information on the sample's elemental composition.
Spectrometer specifications:
Integration of the breadboard spectrometer
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TNO has built an Elegant BreadBoard (EBB) of the combined Raman/LIBS instrument, representative of a future flight model. The EBB has been developed in close cooperation with Cosine (NL), Brunel University (GB), Commissariat d'Energy Atomique (F), the University of Valladolid (E), Swiss Space Technology (CH) and Monocrom (E), under ESA contract 19608/06/NL/GM.
Low mass, size and resource usage were the main drivers of the instrument's design concept. Heart of the instrument is a specifically designed, extremely compact, spectrometer with high resolution over a large wavelength range, suitable for both Raman shift and LIBS measurements. Apart from the previously mentioned spectrometer, the EBB includes lasers, illumination and imaging optics as well as fibre optics for light transfer. Optionally a microscope/close-up imager could be integrated in the design concept.
