| Establishing the geological processes that produce environments conducive to the development of life in the Universe remains the most fundamental goal in science. Mars is the most Earth-like planet in our Solar System and unlike the Earth preserves early formed crust. Coupled with extensive evidence for liquid water activity, it is possible that life developed on Mars and that the controlling geological environments are preserved. ESA?s Aurora first flagship mission, ExoMars, will deploy a surface rover carrying an instrument package (Pasteur) to characterise geological environments and accurately detect past or present life. A unique combined Raman/Laser induced breakdown spectrometer (LIBS) instrument has been pre-selected among the Pasteur package. The combination of Raman-LIBS provides rapid analysis with high spatial resolution. Raman spectrometry will characterise mineralogy and organic compounds and simultaneously the LIBS will determine multi-elemental compositions. In addition, mineral and rock surfaces can be cleaned by the laser and depth profiling is possible. Currently, an elegant bread board (EBB) is approaching completion (2007). Engineers and geochemists from throughout the EU will supervise a PhD project to determine the optimum analytical strategy for the combined instrument on Mars. The EBB will be operated under Martian environmental conditions and a systematic analysis of minerals and rock standards will evaluate the effects of different operating conditions and rock-mineral compositions (e.g., variable atmospheric conditions, plasma production, rock-mineral compositions and colour) so that detection limits, analytical precision and accuracy of data are known. Subsequently protocols developed will be applied to test the flight-model. |
