The Perseverance rover isn’t just roaming Mars; it’s meticulously calibrating its SHERLOC instrument using a special maze, the chief takeaway from recent images. This “Sherlock Holmes”-inspired tool, designed to detect organic compounds, is crucial for the search for ancient microbial life. SHERLOC, located on the rover’s robotic arm, uses a custom maze for precise laser calibration. This maze, along with specially selected materials, helps fine-tune the instrument’s ability to analyze Martian rocks accurately. The calibration target includes spacesuit materials, crucial for future human missions. News Directory 3 keeps a watchful eye on these developments. discover what’s next as scientists continue to analyze the data to refine SHERLOC’s measurements and plan for the future of space exploration!
Mars rover uses maze to calibrate its Sherlock Holmes-inspired instrument
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NASA’s Perseverance rover has been photographing a small plate etched with a tiny maze. But why?
The maze is a calibration target, one of 10 for Perseverance’s SHERLOC, short for Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman & Luminescence for Organics and Chemicals instrument. The Sherlock Holmes-inspired tool is designed to detect organic compounds and minerals that could indicate ancient microbial life.
SHERLOC is located on the rover’s robotic arm. It uses spectroscopic techniques to analyze martian rocks. To ensure accurate measurements, it calibrates its tools using reference materials mounted on a plate attached to the front of the rover: the SHERLOC Calibration Target.
Kyle Uckert,deputy principal investigator for SHERLOC at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory,said the calibration targets refine SHERLOC’s wavelength calibration,calibrate the SHERLOC laser scanner mirror,and monitor the focus and state of health of the laser.
The target is arranged in two rows, each with small patches of carefully selected materials.The top row includes aluminum gallium nitride on sapphire discs, the UV-scattering material Diffusil, and Martian meteorite SaU008, whose mineral makeup helps align wavelength calibration with Martian geology.
The maze is also on the target. Uckert said SHERLOC is all about solving puzzles, and what better puzzle than a maze? The maze calibrates the positioning of the laser scanner mirror and characterizes the laser’s focus, which requires a target with sharply contrasting spectral responses. The maze serves this purpose well.
The maze is made of chrome-plated lines 200 microns thick printed onto silica glass. Uckert said there are no repeating patterns and the spectrum of the chrome plating is distinct from the underlying silica glass, making it possible to measure the laser’s focus and accuracy with precision.
At the center of the maze is a Sherlock Holmes portrait. Uckert said SHERLOC spectral maps can resolve the 200 micron thick chrome plated lines and the 50 micron thick silhouette of Sherlock Holmes at the center of the maze.
The bottom half of the SHERLOC Calibration Target serves as spectral instrument calibration and spacesuit material testing. It contains five samples of materials used in modern spacesuits, including teflon, Gore-Tex, and Kevlar. There is also a geocache marker backing a polycarbonate target, with a tie-in to Sherlock Holmes.
These materials are being tested under Mars conditions to determine how they hold up over time, which is crucial for planning human exploration of Mars. Uckert said they use all of these materials to fine-tune SHERLOC, and the spacesuit materials support science that will help keep future astronauts safe.
SHERLOC also has a color camera called the Wide Angle Topographic Sensor for Operations and eNgineering, or WATSON.
What’s next
The data collected from the SHERLOC Calibration Target will continue to be analyzed to improve the accuracy of SHERLOC’s measurements, aiding in the search for signs of past life on Mars and informing the progress of future spacesuits.
