This paper discusses the challenges associated with designing a space-qualified Raman Spectrometer for lunar exploration, emphasizing the need for high sensitivity, compactness, lightweight, and robustness to withstand the harsh lunar environment. The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is developing a Raman instrument for future lunar missions aimed at identifying mineral constituents in lunar soil with resolution of 8 cm-1 within the wavenumber range of 150 cm-1 to 3800 cm-1. The instrument's design features a monostatic configuration, employing a common optics system for laser focusing, sample positioning, and signal reception to mitigate misalignment errors. Key optimization considerations include mass, volume, and sensitivity, given the stringent constraints of space missions. The instrument utilizes a Volume Phase Holographic (VPH) transmission grating with a groove density of 1500 lines per millimeter (lp/mm) to meet performance requirements. This paper provides valuable insights into the challenges and design considerations inherent in developing Raman spectroscopy instruments for lunar exploration.
We report the development of space qualified three-channel bistatic Laser Detection and Ranging (LADAR) system capable of working up to 2.2 km which includes Master oscillator power amplifier (MOPA) based on High Power Fiber Lasers with specifications of 5W Peak power, 4-millisecond pulse-width at 1550 nm central wavelength. Transmitter-Receiver collimators are aligned in Bistatic configuration within 3.6 arc second accuracy. Doppler shift measurement is estimated using all-fiber optical heterodyne interferometry and thereby highly accurate velocity detection is achieved with 3 sigma accuracy of ±3.108, ±4.063, and ±3.3903 mm/s. The developed LADAR sensor system for velocity measurement is space qualified and has shown nominal performance during all phases of thermal and vibration tests.
The visible emission line coronagraph (VELC) on board the Aditya-L1 mission is an internally occulted reflective coronagraph. It is capable of simultaneous observations of the solar corona in imaging, spectroscopic, and spectropolarimetric modes very close to the solar limb, to 1.05 R ⊙ (R ⊙ – solar radius). Primary mirror (M1) of the VELC receives the light from both the solar disk and the corona up to 3 R ⊙ . In the VELC, occultation happens at the focus of the M1. Secondary mirror (M2) with a central hole size equal to 1.05 R ⊙ is mounted at the focal plane of M1 and serves the purpose of an internal occulter. To meet the proposed science goals of the payload, M1 surface should be super polished with good imaging characteristics. This results in stringent requirements of the surface figure and microroughness on the mirror surface. M1 is an off-axis parabola, so achieving the demanding requirements is quite challenging. At the same time, testing of M1 after development is crucial for evaluating its performance. This paper provides the details of the optical metrology tests carried out on M1 along with the results obtained and their implications on the performance of the VELC.
Conventional two-mirror optical telescope designs are well known. An attempt to improve the performance of a two-mirror telescopic system using freeform surface is reported. Four variants of the optical design that use symmetric and off-axis freeform surfaces for achieving superior performances in the spectral range from 400 to 900 nm are proposed. These designs are compared with the conventional Ritchey–Chretien and equivalent two-mirror off-axis telescope designs with rotationally symmetric surfaces. The optical design with freeform surfaces shows marked improvements compared with its counterpart comprising of conics and higher order aspherics. The incorporation of freeform surfaces is obtained by an overlay of fringe Zernike polynomial either on the base sphere or on the conic itself, which is used as a surface descriptor in the envisaged designs. This approach aids in correction of asymmetrical aberrations and also extends the performances to a wider field, which is quite advantageous in the case of off-axis (de-centered and tilted) optical systems.
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