April 20, 2017

MicrOmega

MicrOmega VIS

The IAS, working with LESIA, provided an optical microscope (MicrOmega VIS).

MicrOmega VIS
Optical microscope (MicrOmega VIS)

MicrOmega IR

Delaying the launch from 2009 to 2011 gave enough time to add a new instrument to the probe: the infrared spectral microscope (MicrOmega IR).

Using microscopic spectral imaging, MicrOmega IR would have given the first on-site analysis of the mineral and molecular composition of a seemingly indistinguishable body, at the scale of individual grains. This description is crucial to determining Phobos’s origin and could be used as a reference for other sample analysis

Moreover, Phobos-Grunt’s MicrOmega IR is a precursor for the ExoMars mission’s future infrared microscope spectrometer.

In early 2011, the IAS delivered the MicrOmega IR microscope they had developed with LESIA and IKI.

MicrOmega IR
IR spectral microscope (MicrOmega IR)