Exploring the capabilities of uLIBS, a new lightweigt in-situ elemental mapper for the Moon

Kurzfassung

Laser-induced breakdown spec-troscopy (LIBS) is versatile and is now widely used in the laboratory and in the field on Earth, as well as on the Martian surface for over a decade. This tech-nique has already led to a significant improvement in our knowledge of the geological history and context of the areas explored by the Curiosity and Persever-ance rovers, which are equipped with the ChemCam [1, 2] and SuperCam [3, 4] instruments, respectively. Efforts to develop LIBS for lunar exploration are also emerging, such as with the Chandrayaan 3 mis-sion by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), which successfully deployed and collected the first LIBS spectra on the Moon. IRAP and its partners are currently developing μLIBS: a 1.5 kg elemental mapper capable of scanning observations with 30 x 30 LIBS shots at a centimeter-scale work-ing space, with a 100 μm footprint per spot [5]. Sev-eral studies have shown that, under vacuum condi-tions, LIBS produces a weaker signal than that pro-duced under Martian conditions [6], but it is still highly useful for scientific investigation [7]. Rock mapping analysis using LIBS has also been success-fully carried out in laboratory experiments under vacuum and Martian conditions, allowing elemental quantification [8, 9]. However, the study of Chan-drayaan 3 LIBS data suggests that the laser focus could be a challenging factor in such an environ-ment, as many of their spectra contain significant noise and low signal intensity [10].