Design and material selection of optomechanical systems for the extreme environment on Mars

Abstract

Mars surface composition detector (MarSCoDe) is a scientific instrument suite onboard the Mars rover of the “Tianwen-1” mission, which uses laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy and shortwave infrared spectroscopy to detect the composition of soils and rocks at the surface of Mars. The optical head unit (OHU) is the core hardware of MarSCoDe, containing a Cassegrain telescope and other optical modules for lasers generation and signals transmission. The unit lacks thermal control resources and is located outside the rover’s cabin, which will directly face the Martian surface drastic temperature changes. We introduce the optomechanical designs that realize the lightweight and high thermal stability of the OHU optical system, especially the designs and implementations of the semiopen primary mirror based on silicon carbide and the fully closed optical bench based on carbon fiber-reinforced polymer. Meanwhile, the advantages and difficulties of silicon carbide, long carbon fiber-reinforced silicon carbide composites, and carbon fiber-reinforced polymer materials used for small and compact optomechanical systems are discussed. Subsequently, the environmental adaptability of the telescope system of OHU was studied through analytical and experimental methods, which show that it can achieve the required optical performance over a temperature range of approximately 100°C.