One of the next Mars missions of NASA will fly a project that aims to characterize the Martian dust and soil, identifying its potential undesirable and harmful effects an with human explorers and associated hardware systems. Optical microscopy will be used to measure the size, shape and size distribution of Martian dust particles. Particle sizes between 10nm and a few micrometers are expected. A second goaa of the microscopy experiment is to determine the hardness of the dust particles by scratching them against substrates of different hardness. The hardware development comprises of a microfabricated array of 8 cantilevers that are addressed sequentially, a small electromagnetic scanner with large scan range, compact and robust control electronics, all of which can withstand radiation exposure, low temperatures, and the shocks and vibrations of the journey to Mars.
Development of the "Space AFM" for interplanetary missions
Entwicklung enes weltalltauglichen Atomkraftmikroskops für interplanetare Aufgaben
5 Seiten, 5 Bilder, 9 Quellen
Aufsatz (Konferenz)
Englisch
Weltraum , Raumfahrt , Planet , Staub , Teilchengröße , Mikroskop , Mikrotechnik , Atomkraftmikroskop
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