Preliminary study of laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) for a Venus mission
- Zane A.
- David A.
- Roger C.
Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS) has been proposed as a candidate analysis system for missions to Mars, asteroids, and recently Venus. This technique has several distinct advantages over other techniques which have been used on past missions (X-Ray fluorescence on Viking 1 and 2, 1976; APXS on Pathfiider, 1997; MER, 2004). Two of the more important advantages LIBS has over other techniques for a mission to Venus is rapid elemental analysis of both high and low Z value elements and stand-off analysis at distances of many meters. Rapid elemental analysis and stand-off analysis are very important to missions to Venus due to the harsh environment at the planet surface. From the Venera missions it is known that on the Venusian surface the pressures are approximately 9.1 MPa (90 atm) and the temperature is near 735 K. For these reasons, the Soviet Venera surface probes had operational lifetimes of less than 2 hours. Currently Venus is the target of one of four missions specifically mentioned for consideration for NASA's New Frontier Program with a launch date of 2010 or earlier. In light of this, it is beneficial to evaluate different analysis methods such as LIBS, which offer to greatly increase the scientific return from such a mission. Currently we have begun to evaluate LIBS detection in an environment with pressures and compositions which are similar to those found on Venus. Although the temperature of Venus ({approx} 735 K) has not been taken into account in these experiments, due to the high temperature of the plasma ({approx}8000 K) signifcant perturbations of excitation characteristics sufficient to affect LIBS analytical capability would not be expected. Previous work, however, has shown that the pressure of the surrounding atmosphere can have a strong effect on the detection of elements in soil. These studies have mainly concentrated on pressures at or below earth ambient pressure, but one study has shown successful results at elevated pressures (3.0 MPa). Here we show results from a LIBS study at 9.1 MPa (90 atm) which demonstrates the feasibility of using this technique for elemental analysis at high pressure.
- Research Organization:
- Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE
- OSTI ID:
- 977481
- Report Number(s):
- LA-UR-04-1024; TRN: US201009%%669
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: Submitted to: 35th Annual Lunar and Planetary Sciences Conference, March 2004, Houston, TX
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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