A MOSSBAUER EXPERIMENT ON MARS

A Mossbauer spectrometer for the mineralogical analysis of the Mars su rface is under development. This instrument will be installed on a Mar s-Rover, which is part of the Russian Mars'96 mission. Due to power an d mass restrictions, the electromechanical drive and the electronic co mponents have been extremely miniaturized, and for the rude conditions during take-off and landing, very much ruggedized in comparison to st andard systems. Solid-state detectors (PIN-diodes) are used for gamma- and X-ray detection in backward geometry and will also give informati on on the elemental composition by Xray fluorescence spectroscopy. The different operations of the spectrometer are controlled autonomously by a microprocessor.