51st Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (2020) 2053.pdf THE LUNAR INFRARED LASER SPECTROMETER FOR ICE PROSPECTING AND CAVE EXPLORATION. E.Z. Noe Dobrea1, T. Roush2, A. Colaprete3, and D. Landis3 1Planetary Science Institute (1700 East Fort Lowell ste 106 – Tucson – AZ – 85719 –
[email protected]; 2NASA Ames Research Center; 3Draper Laboratory Introduction: We report here on the development these observations at a broad range of distances allows of The Lunar Infrared Laser Spectrometer (LILS), an it to peer, from a sunlit vantage point, into the many active spectrometer capable of acquiring near-infrared smaller PSRs that a lander or rover may encounter near (NIR ~ 800-2500 nm) spectra of targets in dark environ- the poles. Such a strategy would inform rover opera- ments at distances ranging from decimeters to hectome- tions, improve operations efficiency and science return, ters. and reduce risk to the mission. This is of particular rel- LILS is a new class of rover- or lander-mounted ac- evance to “micro-PSRs”, or PSRs of the scale of meters tive imaging spectrometer that combines a supercontin- to decameters, which are abundant near the poles, and uum laser (SCL) with a NIR spectrometer to acquire where ice is also expected to be stable [2]. spectra of shadowed areas on the lunar surface or within lava tubes. It is designed specifically to measure the composition, lateral distribution, abundance, and parti- cle size of surface volatiles, hydrated species, and pri- mary mafic igneous minerals. The SCL, a laser that emits polychromatic light in the 0.45 – 2.40 µm region of the spectrum, is used to illuminate the target material from an arbitrary distance within the field of view of the spectrometer.