Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy instrument for accurate in-situ prospection of space resources
- Paper number
IAC-24,A3,IP,133,x83974
- Author
Ms. Inna Uwarowa, Lightigo Space, Luxembourg
- Coauthor
Prof. Pavel Porizka, Czech Republic
- Year
2024
- Abstract
The space exploration is getting momentum and moving towards research, commercialization, and sustainable presence of humanity in space. The key factor of all those steps is understanding of the environment of the targeted celestial body and capability to use the resources for sustainable exploration. After high-level prospection of the surface of Moon, Mars and further potentially beneficial targets, the analytical instruments (related to other segments of In-Situ Resource Utilization, ISRU) shall provide more detailed, more accurate analysis of the elemental composition. Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS) meets the challenge of in-situ geological survey of celestial bodies providing detailed analysis on the level of the element composition. The LIBS technique has already proved its capability as a payload on Mars rovers and its use on lunar rovers is foreseen. Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS) is a modern, dynamically evolving analytical method of atomic emission spectroscopy for determining the elemental composition of material. The LIBS method represents an ideal technique for remote (contactless) in-situ elemental analysis with low demands for sample preparation prior to the analysis. Such a versatile nature of LIBS has resulted in a remarkable diversity of applications ranging from online material classification on an industrial scale, to direct terrain analysis to LIBS-based payloads used for space exploration. Thus, LIBS can be adapted to various instrumental arrangement suitable for various segments of ISRU. Lightigo Space is benefiting from its ground LIBS expertise to bring the technology available for small robotic exploration missions. The ISRA (In-Situ Resource Analyzer) instrument has a unique construction and is composed of a main unit (carrying laser and spectrometer-detector assembly) and a modular unit (carrying focusing and collecting optics), which is mountable on the main unit. The latter can be interchangeable depending on the space application (rover payload, mining conveyor, 3D printer, oxygen extractor). The analytical performance of laboratory LIBS under atmosphereless celestial bodies (Moon, asteroids) is challenging and demands extensive methodological optimization. Several studies have been carried out to demonstrate the LIBS performance under vacuum conditions and to verify the possibility of LIBS utilization for lunar and asteroid explorations.
- Abstract document
- Manuscript document
(absent)