News_ RAX FM Lieferung
RAX milestone achieved:
Flight Model (FM) delivery, contition tests and hand over to MMX rover team successful!
The Japanese led mission Martian Moons Explorations (MMX) is a survey and sample-return mission to the Martian moons Phobos and Deimos, and consists of an orbiter with a lander, and a small rover. Last week, the flight model (FM) of the MMX rover Raman spectrometer (RAX) was delivered from the DLR-Institute of Optical Sensor Systems in Berlin to the French space agency CNES at Toulouse for further integration into the MMX Rover. This marks a major step in the project’s preparation two years before the launch in 2024. The RAX instrument is an entirely scientific payload and will as such characterize the mineralogical composition of the surface of the Martian moon Phobos performing in-situ measurements along the rover’s traverse. The MMX mission aims for shedding light onto the question how Mars came to its two moons to which the in-situ data acquired with the rover plays an important role. The data can also help for a general better understanding of the evolution of our solar system. Multiple locations on Phobos can be targeted and investigated with the mobile robot, enhancing the overall scientific return.
The RAX instrument before verifying it's robustness to space environment (thermal vacuum) in a dedicated simulation chamber at DLR-OS, Berlin.
The RAX instrument was developed under the lead of the German Aerospace Center (DLR), Institute of Optical Sensor Systems in Berlin in cooperation with the Spanish and Japanese space agencies INTA and JAXA, the University of Tokyo and the University of Valladolid, who contributed hardware subsystems. The RAX instrument underwent a comprehensive verification process prior to being shipped to CNES. Throughout the testing campaign, RAX has proven that the forces and vibrations that will occur during launch from Earth and landing on Phobos will not affect the instrument’s performance. Also, the hardware needs to survive the space environment including cosmic radiation during the transit to its destination.
The spectrometer is particularly compact and lightweight to fit onto the very small 25 kg rover. RAX weighs approx. 1.5 kg and has a volume of less than 1 dm3, while at the same time offering a high scientific performance in a working distance of about 8 cm beneath the rover’s body. It is the smallest Raman spectrometer developed for extraterrestrial exploration so far and only the third Raman spectrometer after SHERLOC and SuperCam on NASA’s rover Perseverance, to be launched to space.
The RAX FM attached to the framework for transportation.
From the first design of RAX prepared at DLR-OS in 2018 to the delivery of the final hardware for flight, it was a tight schedule. On July 30th, the RAX flight unit was transported from the DLR Institute of Optical Sensor Systems in Berlin to CNES in Toulouse, France. After arrival on the 1st of August, its condition was checked and confirmed that everything worked as expected before handing the FM over to the rover integration team. Multiple quality assurance checks were performed. Among others, the instrument was put in a working state and commanded to acquire scientific measurements against a well-known target. All tests results were then compared against earlier lab measurements. By this, a safe transport of the instrument to the integration site could be verified.
The MMX rover is expected to start its exploration of Phobos’ surface after the landing in early 2027.
