In the past year, there has been substantial impetus for NASA to consider missions that are of relatively low cost as a trade off for a higher new mission launch rate. To maintain low mission cost, these missions will be of short duration and will use smaller launch vehicles (e.g., Pegasus). Consequently, very low volume, very low mass instrument (a.k.a. miniature instrument) payloads will be r...

Miniature spectrometers incorporating array detectors are becoming a viable, low-cost option for field and process deployments. The performance characteristics of one such instrument are reported and compared with those of a conventional benchtop instrument. The parameters investigated were wavelength repeatability, photometric linearity, instrumental noise (photometric precision) and instrumen...

CheMin is a miniature X-ray diffraction/X-ray fluorescence (XRD/XRF) instrument that is included in the payload of the Mars 2009 Mars Science Laboratory mission. A portable CheMin prototype was built to test the capability of the instrument for remote in-situ mineralogical characterization of geological materials. The instrument was successfully deployed at a variety of Mars analog sites in Dea...

The deployment of in-situ miniature XRD instruments for planetary exploration requires small focus bright X-ray sources that are physically small, lightweight, robust, and power efficient. Existing miniature X-ray tubes are limited by inefficient thermionic electron sources. We have investigated the potential of carbon nanotube (CNT) field emitters for improving the efficiency and durability of...

A non-invasive XRD/XRF instrument for study of works of art has been developed jointly by the Getty Conservation Institute and inXitu Inc. (California). Many aspects of the instrument are based on technologies initially developed for NASA’s planetary XRD/XRF instrument CheMin and used in inXitu’s portable transmission XRD/XRF instrument (Terra). A new geometry was designed based on a reflection...

The fluorescence confocal microendoscope provides high-resolution, in vivo imaging of cellular pathology during optical biopsy. The confocal microendoscope employs a flexible fiber-optic catheter coupled to a custom-built slit-scan confocal microscope. The catheter consists of a fiber-optic imaging bundle linked to a miniature objective and focus assembly. The 3-mm-diameter catheter may be used...

The ultra-compact imaging spectrometer is a miniature imaging spectrometer that has been designed for compatibility with operation in a Martian environment. The spectrometer can be mated to a variety of front optics, both telescopic and microscopic. With a miniature telescope, it can serve as a rover mast instrument that surveys the surrounding area from a distance of ∼1 m to infinity and produ...