SuperCam on its way to Mars

Paper number

IAC-20,A3,3B,3,x59331

Author

Mr. Gabriel Pont, France, Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales (CNES)

Coauthor

Dr. Roger Wiens, United States, Los Alamos National Laboratory

Coauthor

Dr. Sylvestre Maurice, France, Institut de Recherche en Astrophysique et Planétologie (IRAP)

Coauthor

Dr. Olivier Gasnault, France, Institut de Recherche en Astrophysique et Planétologie (IRAP)

Coauthor

Mr. Scott Robinson, United States, Los Alamos National Laboratory

Coauthor

Mrs. Pernelle Bernardi, France, LESIA - Observatoire de Paris

Coauthor

Mr. Philippe Caïs, France, Laboratoire d'astrophysique de Bordeaux, Univ. Bordeaux, CNRS

Coauthor

Mr. Tony Nelson, United States, Los Alamos National Laboratory

Coauthor

Mrs. Muriel Deleuze, France, Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales (CNES)

Coauthor

Dr. Jean-Michel Rees, France, LESIA - Observatoire de Paris

Coauthor

Prof. Fernando Rull, Spain

Coauthor

Mr. Raymond Newell, United States, Los Alamos National Laboratory

Coauthor

Dr. Ivair Gontijo, United States, Caltech/JPL

Coauthor

Dr. Peter Willis, United States, Jet Propulsion Laboratory - California Institute of Technology

Coauthor

Mr. Vishnu Sridhar, United States, Caltech/JPL

Year

2020

Abstract

Following the footsteps of the ChemCam instrument, which has been successfully operated on Mars for more than seven years as part of NASA Curiosity rover instrument suite, an improved instrument, called SuperCam, has been developed and integrated on the NASA Mars 2020 rover.
 
SuperCam is a suite of five different remote techniques in order to identify the chemical composition of rocks and soils, and also their molecular composition. In addition to the elemental characterization offered by Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS) already implemented on ChemCam, time resolved Raman (TRR) and infrared spectrometry (IR) have been added for a complete mineralogical and chemical characterization of the samples at remote distances (1.5 – 7 m for laser-induced techniques, up to infinity for the passive techniques). A context color imaging capability (RMI) is also implemented to place the analyzed samples in their geological context, as well as a microphone (MIC) that provides information on the hardness of the targets when coupled to LIBS, and acoustic data from the wind and rover-induced sounds.
 
SuperCam consists of three units. The “Body Unit” built by LANL (Los Alamos National Laboratory) in the US, the “Mast Unit” built by a French consortium of 7 laboratories and institutes (IRAP, LESIA, LATMOS, OMP, LAB, IAS, and CNES) funded by the French Space Agency (CNES), and a “Calibration Target Unit“ under the responsibility of the University of Valladolid in Spain.
 
The Flight Model was delivered to JPL (Jet Propulsion Laboratory, USA) in June 2019 and integrated into Mars2020 mission rover. It went successfully through the ATLO (Assembly, Tests and Launch Operations) test campaign and demonstrated excellent performance during the Thermal tests at Mars pressure.

The rover is now at KSC (Kennedy Space Center, USA) and will be launched to Mars in July 2020. The landing is planned on February 18th, 2021, and will be quickly followed by the first tests of the various instruments, including SuperCam.
 
The paper will focus on the instrument design and development and will give an overview on the operations organization.

Abstract document

IAC-20,A3,3B,3,x59331.brief.pdf

Manuscript document

IAC-20,A3,3B,3,x59331.pdf (🔒 authorized access only).

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