Mass And Plasma Ion Spectrometers For Near-Surface Lunar Exosphere and Regolith Investigations
- Paper number
IAC-24,A3,IP,144,x90078
- Author
Prof. Jan Dziuban, Wroclaw University of Science and Technology, Poland
- Year
2024
- Abstract
Surface material, covering our Moon, shows highly porous structures similar to the zeolite sorbents. As surface temperature decreases during the Lunar night, the porous Lunar surface material absorbs residual gases. Gases remain trapped until sunrise and warming, when temperature-induced degassing should be observed near the Lunar. Although average pressure of Lunar atmosphere measured at 1 m altitude equals to 10E-11 of hPa, much higher pressure should exists near surface. As the effect of our previous works on miniaturization of gas analyzers for space applications [1-2] we dispose plasma and mass MEMS ion spectrometers showing extraordinary analytical performances. The MEMS origin of instruments ensures small size and high mechanical robustness. In the first of spectrometers, gas mixture is ionized inside MEMS ionizer by electron collisions. Light of glowing plasma is than analyzed by MEMS optical spectrometer. Quantitative and qualitative analysis of gas mixtures are done by analyzing of light spectrum. Our instrument covers UV-NIR range, its molecular sensitivity corresponds to ppb-level, pressure range 100-0,0001 hPa. The analyzer is ideal for analyzing of gases released from porous and solid state materials if equipped with laser ablation block as proposed. The overall size of plasma MEMS spectrometers is 1 U, mass 250 g, consuming 3 W of electrical power. In the second analyzer – the MEMS mass spectrometer - gases are ionized by MEMS magnetron electron-colliding ionizer. Ionized molecules are injected into and the flow-through MEMS quadrupole mass analyzer. Mass-to-charge (m/z) spectrograms are obtained in several seconds. A pressure range is 10E-2 hPa to 10E-9 hPa, mass range 0-450, resolution 50-100, power consumption average 3 W, size 1 U and weight circa 120 g (+electronics). We propose integration of both instruments to form universal, light, small and low-power analytical “combine”, packed onto small (2U, 2 kg, 10 W) moving 3D printed robot with at least 300 m distance autonomy and radio (WiFi) communication with a mother station. We assume extremely low costs of fabrication of instruments, meeting expectation of multi-scouts large area investigation at Luna. [1] https://doi.org/10.1109/IVNC57695.2023.10188997 [2] https://doi.org/10.1109/PowerMEMS56853.2022.10007595
- Abstract document
- Manuscript document
(absent)