Novel Performances of a Combined Raman‐LIBS Instrument for Future Lunar Astronaut Exploration Program: The PHOENIX for PANGAEA Project

Over the last decade, Raman spectroscopy has established itself as a fundamental technique for planetary exploration and the geological characterization of bodies in our Solar System. ESA has been evaluating combinations of analytical methods combined in a portable, handheld analytical tool for planetary surface exploration missions, with the potential use-case being human missions to the surface of the Moon (e.g., in the frame of the NASA-led Artemis program). Based on the Raman technique, we report on a development that seeks to complement Raman with other techniques for determining chemical composition, such as LIBS or XRF, and also provided with a close-up imager integrated into the instruments to obtain context images of the analyzed samples, to determine their texture and help select the point of analysis. For this design, portability and ergonomic considerations are also being taken into account, since they must be operated by future astronauts quickly and efficiently. Breadboard instruments developed in the frame of an ESA contract are designed to interface wirelessly with an electronic field book and are usable not just in a laboratory environment but also as training equipment on Earth during the analogue field campaigns of its astronauts within the PANGAEA program. This work shows the performance obtained by one of the two Portable Handheld cOmbinEd RamaN-LIBS-XRF (PHOENIX) instruments developed within the framework of this ESA contract.