Development of a compact laser for ChemCam instrument and potential use for wind measurement on Mars

Computer Science – Performance

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A new conduction cooled compact laser for Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS) on Mars is presented. The laser provides pulses with energy higher than 30mJ at 1μm of wavelength with a good spatial quality (M2 between 1 and 3 according to the temperature). The performance of the laser is within the specifications on a large temperature range (-20°C/+20°C). This laser will be mounted on the ChemCam Instrument of the NASA mission MSL 2009 (finally reported to 2011). The goal of this instrument is to study the chemical composition of Martian rocks. A laser source (subject of this presentation) emits a pulse. It creates a luminous plasma on the rock, which is then analyzed by three spectrometers. The laser source was developed by the French company Thales Laser, under funding and with technical support from CNES. The laser is compact and does not require any active cooling. More recently, the laser was studied by the LATMOS (Laboratoire Atmosphères, Milieux, Observations Spatiales, former Service d'Aéronomie). The goal of this study was to make spectral measurements on the laser to evaluate its capacity to be used as a luminous source for Lidar applications, and in particular for a Doppler Lidar measuring the wind speed. As the laser is very well adapted to the harsh Martian environments, one of the possible applications would be wind speed measurements on Mars. The first results obtained by the LATMOS are good and do not show any impossibilities for this target application.

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