Water Isotope Tunable Laser Spectrometer

In situ quantification and isotopic characterization of lunar water are high value targets for NASA and future commercial deployments. The suspicion that permanently shaded regions of the Moon could be home to large amounts of water ice that function as both witness plates to the evolution of the solar system and as potential resources for fueling human exploration dates back decades. However, confirmation of their presence has been elusive due to technical challenges accessing and making measurements in these regions. As the next round of lunar exploration begins with the Artemis program, we can take advantage of advancements in instrument miniaturization and increased robotics capability to enable these measurements. We will develop a water isotope tunable laser spectrometer (WITLS) to measure water abundance and isotopic ratios on the lunar surface. These in situ measurements will inform on the distribution, origin, and processes affecting lunar water. By focusing on water, instrument size can be reduced to hundreds of grams requiring only micrograms or less of sample. By being miniature, less resources are needed for operation, more payload room is available for other systems, and greater integration flexibility into other form factors such as hand-held sampling tools is possible. Such in situ measurements can be performed during collection of material slated for sample return and thus WITLS performs a key Artemis Science Definition Team goal of volatile monitoring. WITLS currently is a TRL4 instrument, originally developed for planetary applications, capable of measuring gas phase isotopes in water via vaporization of injected microliter liquid samples. We will borrow and miniaturize key components from TLS Curiosity which measures D/H in Martian water. For this project, we will evolve the system to TRL6 by ruggedizing it for the thermal and vacuum environment of the moon, minimizing internal sample volume while retaining ppm and per mil level precision and accuracy by mitigating wall effects, and integrate and test with robotic platforms developed under the Cooperative Autonomous Distributed Robotic Exploration (CADRE) program in a moon simulated environment. This latter capability points to new classes of lower cost missions suitable for exploring permanently shaded areas without having to spend prolonged periods in the dark.

Developing Instrument or spacecraft technology to improve measurements for future lunar missions

This is a mature technology (TRL 7+) — the realistic path in is usually NASA's Technology Transfer Program: licensing an existing NASA patent, or a Space Act Agreement to use NASA facilities/expertise directly. NASA also runs a startup licensing program with no upfront fee for companies formed to commercialize a specific NASA technology.

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