Info on the MSL instruments still seems rather hard to come by, particularly SAM.
I've spotted an odd discrepancy among descriptoins of SAM, too. Older ones mention a laser desorption mass spectroscopy capability (LDMS). I guess a moderate power laser bakes off layers of the sample and the resulting ions then waft through the MS unit. Sounds interesting...
But later descriptions make no mention of the LDMS.
And yet nothing I've seen mentions why it was, presumably, removed.
Anyone know?
And while we're at it, anyone got any juicy stuff on other MSL instrument packages they've learned?
--Nick
Perhaps the original SAM suite was descoped by Mahaffy et al. (by dropping LDMS) before the proposal was submitted for the MSL Science Investigations AO? It's either that or NASA made a partial selection of the SAM suite before announcing the accepted proposal in December 2004.
I don't know how many technojunkies are on this forum, but there are a lot of very cool photos (with explanations) of the electronics modules of the SAM instrument, as well as some of Chemin, MAVEN, Phoenix TEGA, LADEE, etc., on the Battel Engineering website. It looks as if this company specializes in power supply electronics and the like. I don't understand much of what I see, but I certainly have a much higher appreciation of the complexity of these instruments now. I recommend going to:
http://www.battel-engineering.com/photos.html
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