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Completed TRL 5 (started at 2, targeting 5)
THSiRU, a sensitive THz-spectrometer that targets multiple vaper phase molecular species such as water and hydrated minerals by ablating the lunar regolith. THSiRU is state-of-the-art instrument that has a 1U CubeSat volume, low mass (1.3 kg) and power (6.3 W). THSiRU provides a spectral resolution (x105) higher than the Fourier-Transform Spectrometer (FTS) instrument on the Cassini mission and will be used for In-Situ resource utilization (ISRU) applications.
THSiRU combines a laser ablation source with a gas cell to trap liberated volatile products up to 20 mm deep into the regolith, and using the Sun as a background source, the liberated volatiles inside the gas cell will be measured with absorption spectroscopy. At the PSRs where there is no sunlight, a bright source such as Mercury-Lamp could be included with THSiRU to provide a background source. The current spacecraft-based spectroscopic remote-sensing methods, such as Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), which operate on reflected sunlight, cannot probe into shadowed regions and are only sensitive to a few micrometers into the surface of the individual regolith grains rather than lunar subsurface (bulk depth).
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