The camera components are of the shelf models, but the circuit that manages their interface and power was designed by JPL. It was then built by Tempo Automation in San Francisco. Tempo was established in 2013, just after NASA announced the Mars 2020 mission, to improve manufacturing processes.
As the name suggests, Tempo Automation focuses on fast, automated production of printed circuits, even in small batches. One set of tools that the company offers for this is the process of making each component ‘traceable’, keeping track of who touched it and what was done to it at each point in the production process of the board, as well as which component the piece came from. come. This information makes it easier to consider the cause of a problem and see what other boards could be affected, said Shashank Samala, co-founder of Tempo.
To meet JPL’s stringent documentation requirements, Tempo added X-ray photographs, ionic neatness data, and automated optical inspection data for each component, all of which are now part of the company’s standard procedure.
A unique tool for Tempo is what it calls manufacturing simulation – software that translates a computer-aided design (CAD) model into a photorealistic representation of what the final board will look like. A team was prototyping the tool when the JPL work began in early 2018, and the work helped them complete it, Samala said. It started the following year.
With the simulation, customers can check their designs for problems or defects before production begins, he said. “A simple mistake can cost a lot of money and time.”
Although it is meant to help customers finalize their designs, the company has discovered that it is also useful. The manufacturing process could lead to discrepancies between the original CAD model and the final product, Samala explained. The simulation “serves as a source of truth on the factory floor to communicate the designers’ intentions. The first thing we look at is the simulation. ‘
He said delivering a product that meets NASA standards has helped the company get into several other space systems, including satellites and rockets.
Meanwhile, Chris Basset, who designed the circuit board at JPL, is looking forward to the moment the camera footage from Mars is radiated after Perseverance’s landing on February 18, 2021. “It’s so far beyond what we normally do that it’s super exciting.” he said. “I can not wait to see the images.”
Ultraviolet Lasers Looking for Chemical Clues
Another technology whose roots go far back to NASA’s Mars exploration program is also flying for the first time on Perseverance and has many potential applications here on earth.
When two longtime colleagues founded Photon Systems in 1997, research has shown incredible promise for spectrometers – devices that use light to determine the composition of a sample – that operate at deep ultraviolet (UV) wavelengths. It had the potential to identify a bacterium or detect even the slightest chemical traces. But sources of light in the 220 to 250 nanometer range were too large, heavy and sensitive to environmental interference and had many other problems.
William Hug and Ray Reid tried to develop a miniature, lightweight, robust deep UV laser source for spectroscopy in the field. Their first outside investment came in 1998 from a pair of SBIR contracts with JPL, which was interested in a spectrometer that could detect nucleic and amino acids, organic materials that are fundamental to all known lives. Since then, the Covina, California-based company has received a number of NASA SBIRs, mostly with JPL, as well as funding NASA programs aimed at developing instruments for planetary and astrobiology science.
The space agency is now getting the first major return on its long-term investment in technology: Perseverance is equipped with the Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman and Luminescence for Organics and Chemicals (SHERLOC) instrument, which uses a Photon Systems laser to detect previously invisible clues to track. in his search for signs of past life on Mars.
Although the team does not expect to find bacteria on Mars, organic substances found in the near surface can be identified with SHERLOC. On Earth, the same technology can be used to identify organic matter for a variety of other purposes.
Deep UV photons interact strongly with many materials, especially with organic molecules. This results in higher detection sensitivity and greater accuracy compared to infrared or even visible light laser sources.
Deep UV spectroscopy was done in research laboratories, but Hug and Reid came up with a construction that was much smaller, simpler and cheaper to build than any existing alternative. ‘Deep UV lasers start at $ 100,000. That is why they are not used in industry, ”Hug said, pointing out that laboratory instruments using the technology could take three laboratory tables and take a month to set up.
One big challenge was the level of perfection that technology required. The same sensitivity that enables small, high-energy wavelengths to detect even a virus makes them vulnerable to the slightest flaws. A microscopic imperfection in a lens or other surface can disrupt or scatter it, and Hug said it has made progress in various industries to meet the required standards.
Photon Systems focuses on two types of spectroscopy, where deep UV laser sources offer great advantages over long-lasting spectrometer technology, and SHERLOC will use both. Fluorescence spectroscopy observes the light emitted by most organic and highly inorganic materials when generated by certain ultraviolet wavelengths, just like detergent glowing under a black light. Each emits a clear spectral ‘fingerprint’.
Raman spectroscopy, on the other hand, observes the light scattering a molecule, some of which will shift to different wavelengths due to interaction with molecular bonding vibrations within the sample. These wavelength changes can be used to identify the materials in a sample. The higher energy photons of UV light elicit a much stronger Raman scattering signal from organic molecules than light with a lower frequency. And because deep UV light does not occur in natural fluorescence or in sunlight, the use of these very short wavelengths eliminates sources of interference.
In recent years, the company has begun to develop the technology in products, including hand-held sensors and devices that monitor personal exposure to pollution, as well as laboratory equipment. Their biggest markets are now in the pharmaceutical, food processing and wastewater treatment industries, Hug said. Deep UV can identify and measure certain compounds at much lower concentrations than any other method, and offers unprecedented precision in quality control, whether the measurement of the active ingredients in pharmaceutical products or the cleaning of machinery and facilities.
In wastewater treatment, technology can identify and measure pollutants so that the operator can adapt the treatment process and save on power for ozone infusion and aeration. “For a small wastewater treatment plant, the whole system pays for itself in less than a month,” Hug said.
One application in which the military has invested is the identification of bacteria and viruses. For example, finding out which bacteria are present in a wound can help determine the right antibiotic to treat it, rather than using broad-spectrum antibiotics that may pose the risk of drug resistance.
And fast, affordable deep UV spectroscopy involves medical research, from diagnostics to the identification of proteins, peptides and other biological materials.
“NASA has been a constant companion in our journey to date, and the laser is only part of the story,” Hug said. “These are also the deep-UV Raman and fluorescence instruments we have built over the years for NASA and the Department of Defense, which now provide breakthroughs for pharmaceuticals, wastewater and water quality in general, and now clinical testing for viruses. . “
On Mars, SHERLOC will search for organic materials and analyze the minerals around possible signs of life so researchers can understand their context, said Luther Beegle, lead researcher for SHERLOC at JPL. It gives more details about the history of Mars and also helps to identify monsters for return to Earth. The instrument, which also contains a camera capable of forming microscopic imaging, can map the mineral and organic composition of a rock in detail and provide very important data.
“We’re going to make a brand new measurement on Mars,” Beegle said. ‘This is something that has never been tried before. We think we’re really going to move the needle on Mars science and find some good monsters to bring back. ‘
NASA has a long history of transferring technology to the private sector. The agency’s Spinoff publication profiles NASA technologies that have turned into commercial products and services, demonstrating the broader benefits of America’s investment in its space program. Spinoff is a publication of the Technology Transfer Program in NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate.
For more information on how NASA is bringing space technology to Earth, visit:
spinoff.nasa.gov