Press release from Business Wire India
Source: Ocean Optics
Thursday, February 09, 2012 10:01 AM IST (04:31 AM GMT)
Editors: General: Consumer interest; Business: Business services, Chemicals; Technology; Healthcare
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Ocean Optics Spectrometers Head to Mars
ChemCam instrument launches on Curiosity Rover to study rock and soil composition of the red planet
Mumbai, Maharashtra, India, Thursday, February 09, 2012 -- (Business Wire India) -- Three Ocean Optics (www.OceanOptics.com) instruments have begun their eight month journey to Mars. Customized HR2000 spectrometers are a part of the ChemCam unit on NASA's Mars Science Lab rover, Curiosity, launched November 26, 2011 from Cape Canaveral, Florida.
Ocean Optics supplied three modular HR2000 high-resolution miniature fiber optic spectrometers that were configured for analysis of Martian rock and soil composition using Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS). A laser mounted to the mast unit of the ChemCam instrument can fire at targets up to nine meters away, generating a series of laser pulses, the light from which is collected for the LIBS analysis.
The modular design of the HR2000, with selectable optical bench options such as detector, grating and entrance aperture (slit), made it an ideal choice for the mission. Each ChemCam spectrometer is configured to detect elemental signatures over a different wavelength of light: 240-336 nm, 380-470 nm, and 470-850 nm. The use of the three spectrometers simplifies the design and creates redundancy, as many elements under study have spectral lines in more than one of the spectral ranges covered by the three units.
Another reason the HR2000 was chosen for this mission was its reliability - a must for remote space operation where maintenance is impossible. Because the spectrometer contains no moving parts to fail, it can withstand the G forces associated with space travel. Additionally, the spectrometers were modified to handle extreme temperature ranges, radiation, shock and vibration.
The Curiosity Rover has been described by NASA as having the most advanced scientific instrumentation ever used to study the surface of Mars. With the analysis enabled by Ocean Optics' equipment, sample analysis is exponentially faster. On prior missions, the time required to determine composition of a single sample was two to three days; ChemCam's output is anticipated to be one dozen compositional measurements per day.
This is not the first space voyage for Ocean Optics equipment. In 2009, the company also collaborated on the ALICE spectrometer, which was instrumental in detecting the presence of water ice on the moon. Other NASA researchers have utilized Ocean Optics spectrometers for applications both on Earth and in space.
About Ocean Optics
Headquartered in the USA, Ocean Optics (www.OceanOptics.com) is a leading supplier of solutions for optical sensing - fundamental methods of measuring and interpreting the interaction of light with matter. With locations in Asia and Europe, the company has sold more than 100,000 spectrometers worldwide since 1992. Ocean Optics' extensive line of complementary technologies includes chemical sensors, analytical instrumentation, optical fibres, thin films and optics. The company is a subsidiary of Halma p.l.c.
About Halma
Halma p.l.c. (www.halma.com) is an international market leader in safety, health and sensor technology. A public company listed on the London Stock Exchange, it has 3,600 employees in 36 subsidiaries worldwide. Halma's subsidiaries make products that protect lives and improve the quality of life for people through innovation in market leading products which make its customers safer, more competitive and more profitable. These subsidiaries are assisting India's economy in areas such as manufacturing, energy, water and waste treatment, the environment, construction, transport and health.
Halma recently opened a Hub office in Mumbai. For further news about Halma in India and to subscribe to the Halma India RSS News Feed please visit our blog at: http://halmapr.com/news/india/.
Photo: Spectrometers from Ocean Optics will enable rapid sample analysis on Mars
CONTACT DETAILS
Santosh Sen, Halma India, +91 (22) 67080400/ +91 9820247680, santosh.sen@halma.com
Damian Corbet, Halma PR Services, +44 (0)1494 789152, dcorbet@halmapr.com
KEYWORDS
CONSUMER, BUSINESS SERVICES, CHEMICALS, TECHNOLOGY, HEALTHCARE
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