MOSSBAUER-SPECTROSCOPY IN-SPACE

Nearly 40 years after the discovery of the Mossbauer effect for the fi rst time a Mossbauer spectrometer will leave our planet to explore in situ the surface of another solar system body: the red planet Mars [1] . We are currently developing a miniaturized Mossbauer spectrometer (M IMOS) which is part of the scientific payload of the Russian Mars96 mi ssion, to be launched within the next 2-4 years [2,3]. To fulfill the requirements for a space mission to the planet Mars, all parts of the spectrometer had to be extremely miniaturized and ruggedized to withst and the space flight and Mars environmental conditions. The relevant p arts (e.g. drive, detector system, electronics etc.) will be described in more detail and its characteristics compared to standard systems. Because of this new development there now is a growing interest to inc lude a Mossbauer (MB) instrument in future space missions to other sol ar system bodies as for instance Venus, the terrestrial Moon, and a co met nucleus. Because of extremely different environmental conditions ( e.g. nearly zero gravity on the surface of a comet nucleus, high press ure and temperature on the surface of Venus, etc.) different instrumen t designs and concepts are required for different missions. We will pr esent some ideas for various types of missions, as well as the motivat ion for using Mossbauer spectroscopy in these cases.