Ocean Optics’ three customized HR2000 spectrometers have concluded its eight month exploration journey to Mars to analyze the composition of soil as part of the ChemCam mission. NASA’s Mars Science Lab rover, Curiosity, was launched with the Ocean Optics instruments onboard in November 2011.
The Curiosity Rover has ahighly sophisticated scientific instrumentation to explore Mars surface, and with a weight of 1 ton, it has the heaviest payload. The 7-min descent via the atmosphere of Mars depended on a challenging landing sequence never attempted before. The Ocean Optics spectrometers onboard were customized to address the challenges of space travel and descent such as extreme temperature ranges, vibration, shock and radiation.
Immediately after its landing on the surface of the Gale Crater, the Curiosity Rover sent the first images. The three modular HR2000 high-resolution miniature fiber optic spectrometers start their work when the rover travels to Mount Sharp, a 3 mile high mountain within the crater. The Ocean Optics spectrometers will explore rocks and soil composition of Mars utilizing laser induced breakdown spectroscopy.
Each ChemCam spectrometer is designed to identify elemental signatures for a variety of light wavelengths, including 470-850 nm, 380-470 nm, and 240-336 nm. The utilization of the Ocean Optics instruments simplifies the design and produces redundancy, because several elements under analysis have spectral lines in over one of the spectral ranges encompassed by the three units.
NASA researchers have utilized Ocean Optics instruments for missions on Earth as well as in space. ALICE, a customized Ocean Optics spectrometer, played a key role in determining the existence of water ice on the moon in the LCROSS mission. Using Ocean Optics’ modular Jaz spectrometer, the Mt. Everest was scaled by a team comprising NASA astronaut Scott Parazynski to make measurements of solar irradiance at extreme altitude.
Source: http://www.oceanoptics.com
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