PIA24261-MarsPerseveranceRover-SHERLOC-CalibrationTarget-20201208

Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman and Luminescence for Organics and Chemicals (SHERLOC) is an ultraviolet

Raman spectrometer Raman spectroscopy () (named after Indian physicist C. V. Raman) is a spectroscopic technique typically used to determine vibrational modes of molecules, although rotational and other low-frequency modes of systems may also be observed. Raman s ...

that uses fine-scale imaging and an ultraviolet (UV) laser to determine fine-scale mineralogy, and detect

organic compound In chemistry, organic compounds are generally any chemical compounds that contain carbon- hydrogen or carbon-carbon bonds. Due to carbon's ability to catenate (form chains with other carbon atoms), millions of organic compounds are known. Th ...

s designed for the ''Perseverance'' rover as part of the

Mars 2020 Mars 2020 is a Mars rover mission forming part of NASA's Mars Exploration Program that includes the rover '' Perseverance'', the small robotic, coaxial helicopter '' Ingenuity'', and associated delivery vehicles. Mars 2020 was launched from ...

mission. It was constructed at the

Jet Propulsion Laboratory The Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) is a federally funded research and development center and NASA field center in the City of La Cañada Flintridge, California, United States. Founded in the 1930s by Caltech researchers, JPL is owned by NASA ...

with major subsystems being delivered from Malin Space Science Systems and

Los Alamos National Laboratory Los Alamos National Laboratory (often shortened as Los Alamos and LANL) is one of the sixteen research and development laboratories of the United States Department of Energy (DOE), located a short distance northwest of Santa Fe, New Mexico, i ...

. The Principal Investigator is Luther Beegle, and the Deputy Principal Investigator is Rohit Bhartia. SHERLOC has a calibration target with possible Mars suit materials, and it will measure how they change over time in the Martian surface environment.

Goals

According to a 2017 Universities Space Research Association (USRA) report:

Construction

There are three locations on the rover where SHERLOC components are located. The SHERLOC Turret Assembly (STA) is mounted at the end of the rover arm. The STA contains spectroscopy and imaging components. The SHERLOC Body Assembly (SBA) is located on the rover chassis and acts as the interface between the STA and the Mars 2020 rover. The SBA deals with command and data handling, along with power distribution. The SHERLOC Calibration Target (SCT) is located on the front of the rover chassis and hold spectral standards. SHERLOC consists of both imaging and spectroscopic elements. It has two imaging components consisting of heritage hardware from the MSL MAHLI instrument. One is a built to print re-flight that can generate color images over multiple scales. The other acts as the mechanism that allows the instrument to get a contextual image of a sample and to autofocus the laser spot for the spectroscopic part of the SHERLOC investigation. For Spectroscopy, it utilizes a NeCu laser to generate UV photons (248.6 nm) which can generate characteristic Raman and fluorescence photons from a scientifically interesting sample. The deep UV laser is co-boresighted to a context imager and integrated into an autofocusing/scanning optical system that allows correlation of spectral signatures to surface textures, morphology and visible features. The context imager has a spatial resolution of 30 µm and currently is designed to operate in the 400-500 nm wavelength range. One of the cameras is the Wide Angle Topographic Sensor for Operations and eNgineering (WATSON).''Probing for life in the icy crusts of ocean worlds''
/ref>

References

External links

Mars 2020 Mission - Home Page - NASA/JPL
{{Portal bar, Astronomy, Biology, Solar System Mars 2020 instruments Raman spectroscopy Spectrometers

Goals

Construction

See also

References

External links