Submitted Abstract
ispace is a Tokyo based private lunar exploration company with a vision to extend human presence into outer space. ispace is developing micro-robotic technologies that can be used for lunar surface exploration to map the resources. ispace now opened their European branch in Luxembourg in March 2017, targeting product development for the European market under the support of the Luxembourgish government. ispace and LIST have set-up a strategic partnership in order to develop a first mission, called Roving Spectrometer Program, to prospect lunar resources. In this first mission, a high performance compact mass spectrometer developed at the Advanced Instrumentation for Ion Nano-Analytics (AINA) group of the Material Research and Technology (MRT) department will be integrated into an ispace micro-rover robot. The instrument will be able to perform in-situ detection of water at a lunar pole as well as perform an initial mapping of the water distribution in a polar region. This collaboration is part of Luxembourg’s ambitious spaceresource.lu initiative and the Roving Spectrometer project is currently under review at the Ministry of Economy under the Luximpulse program. A crucial brick stone in the Roving Spectrometer program is the availability of a high performance 1D focal plane detector for the mass spectrometer device. Therefore, the objective of this collaborative project (FOCAL1DS) between LIST and ispace is to develop a space deployable 1D focal plane detector for the Roving Spectrometer instrument. This development will reach TRL5-6 at the end of this project in order to make available the detector technology that is required for the Roving Spectrometer instrument and that will then be tested as a whole in relevant space environments. This development will not only enable the progress of the Roving Spectrometer Program but also significantly contribute to the global progress of LIST activities in the field of high-resolution high-sensitivity nano-analytics instrumentation, including strengthening the potential for commercialization of LIST technology.