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Wednesday, December 15, 2004

LANL Laser Will Head to Mars To Analyze Rocks

By John Fleck
Journal Staff Writer
    Roger Wiens' laser will hitch a ride to Mars in 2009.
    NASA announced Tuesday it will send the Los Alamos National Laboratory scientist's device aboard the Mars Science Laboratory.
    The instrument will blast rocks with a laser beam to determine what they are made of, Wiens said Tuesday.
    Wiens' "ChemCam" is part of a mission planned by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration as a follow-up to its successful Mars Rovers, two robots currently rolling across the surface of Mars.
    The Mars Science Laboratory will be similar but larger, a wheeled robot almost the size of a Volkswagen Bug, Wiens said in a telephone interview Tuesday afternoon.
    Mars has attracted scientists' attention because of evidence that there was once water on the planet's surface, a necessary condition for life as we know it.
    The Mars Science Laboratory is the latest in a series of NASA missions to the planet.
    In July 1997, the Mars Pathfinder mission demonstrated that a wheeled rover would work on Mars. Since January of this year, the rovers Opportunity and Spirit have been collecting data about Martian geology, including convincing evidence of water.
    Wiens' ChemCam is designed to overcome a vexing difficulty in working on Mars.
    "You have a surface that's very dusty," Wiens said.
    To study the chemical composition of rocks, the current rovers must literally brush away the dust and a layer similar to the "desert varnish" found on rocks on Earth to get to the underlying minerals.
    Wiens' device will instead use a laser that can blast a rock from up to 40 feet.
    It will vaporize a small amount of the underlying mineral, then collect light emitted by the vaporized rock to see what it is made up of.
    Called "Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy," the technique is commonly used for such applications as determining the detailed contents of steel or finding dental cavities.
    Wiens first proposed to NASA seven years ago that such a laser would be useful on Mars.
    In 2000, one of the devices was built and put on a robotic rover tested in the deserts of Nevada. That led to a formal proposal last summer to fly the ChemCam aboard the new Mars Science Laboratory.
    The new rover will include two other instruments for determining the chemical makeup of Martian rocks and soil, along with a number of cameras.
    NASA also announced Tuesday it has decided to include an instrument to measure radiation levels on the surface of Mars— an important piece of data if and when humans travel there.
    Launch is scheduled for 2009, with the spacecraft arriving at Mars in 2010.