NASA awarded some pretty odd contracts in the past. NASA also likes catchy acronyms for their projects.
The Southwest Research Institute just got $3 million bucks from NASA for LASVEGAS development. No, not Las Vegas the place for high stakes gambling.
LASVEGAS stands for Laser Absorption Spectrometer for Volatiles and Evolved Gas Instruments. As I said, NASA likes its cool acronyms.
The plan is to develop a lunar version of its NASA’s existing spectrometer that can precisely measure the volatile compounds present in planetary atmospheres and surfaces, but NASA wants one specialized for the Moon. The new version will be smaller, focused on optimization for lunar missions.
CAD model of the TRL-6 Lunar LASVEGAS instrument. The chassis and individually hermetically- sealed aluminum housings around the optical cell and laser systems have been removed for clarity. (credit Lunar Surface Science Workshop)
The size of LASVEGAS makes it suitable for use on small landers/rovers. It can also be hand-carried for rapid reconnaissance and prospecting by astronauts. LASVEGAS requires minimal set-up, but requires more development. Currently, LASVEGAS ranks as a laboratory-proven (TRL-4) infrared laser spectrometer that is undergoing maturation to TRL-6 for application. To get the technology matured, NASA will need to spend an estimated 18 million dollars more for a demonstration mission.
It’s like a big Star Trek tricorder
“LASVEGAS is about half the size of a paper towel roll. It’s extremely compact, low mass, low volume and low power – all important characteristics for spaceflight,” said SwRI’s Dr. Scot Rafkin, principal investigator of the instrument. “It can be deployed on the smallest of rovers or landers as well as carried in a single hand by an astronaut sauntering across the lunar surface in search of water ice, methane and other useful resources.”
The instrument can directly measure gases from planetary atmospheres such as Mars to understand their composition. It can also heat a sample of a planetary surface such as the icy surface of Jupiter’s moon Europa or from lunar soil to determine the composition of released gases.
NASA’s Maturation of Instruments for Solar System Exploration (MatISSE) program provided $3M in 2019 to develop the LASVEGAS instrument for application to Europa and similar icy worlds. In 2020, SwRI received an additional $3 million from the agency’s Development and Advancement of Lunar Instrumentation (DALI) program to adapt the design to operate on the Moon’s surface. “Spectrometry is one of the key analytical tools used in space exploration,” Rafkin said. “LASVEGAS heats a thimble-sized sample from a planetary surface to release water and other volatile gases like methane.”
The gas flows into a small, cylindrical chamber where laser light of different wavelengths is bounced back and forth between mirrors on each end. As the light passes repeatedly through the gas in the sample, the different molecular species in the gas absorb the light differently depending on the wavelength.
Then the laser light is directed onto a detector that measures its intensity to determine the abundance of the volatile compounds. Each molecular species in the gas has a distinct “fingerprint” of absorption, revealing its overall abundance.
“The instrument is yet to be selected for flight on a mission, but the work funded under the MatISSE and DALI programs will allow the instrument to be credibly proposed for a variety of future opportunities, especially those related to the return of humans to the surface of the Moon,” Rafkin said.
The LASVEGAS development team also includes Ball Aerospace, Southwest Sciences Inc. and Princeton University.
About SwRI
SwRI develops space instruments that help measure and quantify the unique characteristics of distant planets and objects in our solar system and beyond. SwRI scientists developed instruments and related avionics systems that have flown on over 50 commercial and government-related space missions, providing a basis for research that helps expand scientific understanding of the solar system. SwRI specialties include payload systems and design and fabrication of space and ground instruments.
About The Author
Bill D’Zio
Co-Founder at WestEastSpace.com
Bill founded WestEastSpace.com after returning to China in 2019 to be supportive of his wife’s career. Moving to China meant leaving the US rocket/launch industry behind, as the USA and China don’t see eye to eye on cooperation in space. Bill has an engineering degree and is an experienced leader of international cross-functional teams with experience in evaluating, optimizing and awarding sub-contracts for complex systems. Bill has worked with ASME Components, Instrumentation and Controls (I&C) for use in launch vehicles, satellites, aerospace nuclear, and industrial applications.
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