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PIXL: Planetary Instrument for X-Ray Lithochemistry

Space Science Reviews volume 216, Article number: 134 (2020) Cite this article

A Correction to this article was published on 17 February 2021

This article has been updated

Abstract

Planetary Instrument for X-ray Lithochemistry (PIXL) is a micro-focus X-ray fluorescence spectrometer mounted on the robotic arm of NASA’s Perseverance rover. PIXL will acquire high spatial resolution observations of rock and soil chemistry, rapidly analyzing the elemental chemistry of a target surface. In 10 seconds, PIXL can use its powerful 120 μm-diameter X-ray beam to analyze a single, sand-sized grain with enough sensitivity to detect major and minor rock-forming elements, as well as many trace elements. Over a period of several hours, PIXL can autonomously raster-scan an area of the rock surface and acquire a hyperspectral map comprised of several thousand individual measured points. When correlated to a visual image acquired by PIXL’s camera, these maps reveal the distribution and abundance variations of chemical elements making up the rock, tied accurately to the physical texture and structure of the rock, at a scale comparable to a 10X magnifying geological hand lens. The many thousands of spectra in these postage stamp-sized elemental maps may be analyzed individually or summed together to create a bulk rock analysis, or subsets of spectra may be summed, quantified, analyzed, and compared using PIXLISE data analysis software. This hand lens-scale view of the petrology and geochemistry of materials at the Perseverance landing site will provide a valuable link between the larger, centimeter- to meter-scale observations by Mastcam-Z, RIMFAX and Supercam, and the much smaller (micron-scale) measurements that would be made on returned samples in terrestrial laboratories.

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Notes

  1. Contamination levels are defined by IEST-STD-CC1246D, which is the successor to Mil. Std. 1246D.

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Acknowledgements

This research was carried out at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under a contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (80NM0018D0004). The authors gratefully acknowledge two anonymous reviewers for their helpful contributions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA

    Abigail C. Allwood, Lawrence A. Wade, Marc C. Foote, Douglas E. Dawson, Robert W. Denise, Eric M. Ek, Martin S. Gilbert, Matthew E. King, Carl Christian Liebe, David P. Randall, Robert F. Sharrow, Michael E. Sondheim, Mitchell H. Au, Christophe Basset, John C. Bousman, David Braun, Robert J. Calvet, Luca Cinquini, Henry A. Conley, Scott Davidoff, Ernesto Diaz, Gary B. Doran, Joan Ervin, Michael Evans, Johannes Gross, Brett Hannah, Cathleen M. Harris, Christopher M. Heirwegh, Christina Hernandez, Robert P. Hodyss, James R. Holden, Christopher Hummel, Matthew A. Jadusingh, Jonathan H. Kawamura, Amarit Kitiyakara, James L. Lambert, Peter R. Lawson, Yang Liu, Thomas S. Luchik, Kristen M. Macneal, Soren N. Madsen, Patrick L. Meras, Richard E. Muller, Jamie Napoli, Bret J. Naylor, Raul M. Perez, Napat Pootrakul, Raul A. Romero, Rogelio Rosas, Rembrandt T. Schaefer, Michael E. Schein, Timothy P. Setterfield, Vritika Singh, Eugenie Song, Mary M. Soria, Paul C. Stek, Nicholas R. Tallarida, David R. Thompson, Violet Torossian, Shihchuan Tsai, Kyle Uckert, Juan Villalvazo, Mandy Wang, Daniel W. Wilson, Shana C. Worel, Payam Zamani & Fang Zhong

  2. University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA

    William Timothy Elam

  3. Department of Geosciences, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY, USA

    Joel A. Hurowitz & Scott M. McLennan

  4. Battel Engineering, Scottsdale, AZ, USA

    Steven Battel

  5. Moxtek Inc., Orem, UT, USA

    Todd Parker, Sterling Conaby, Kris Kozaczek, Mike Zappe & Richard Zimmerman

  6. Measurement & Instrumentation Systems, National Space Institute, Technical University of Denmark, 2800, Kongens Lyngby, Denmark

    David A. K. Pedersen, Mathias Benn, Troelz Denver, John L. Jørgensen & Lars Timmermann

  7. XOS, East Greenbush, NY, USA

    George Allen, Jenna Delaney, Ning Gao, Yejun He, Igor Ponomarev & Jared Sachs

  8. Space Physics Research Laboratory, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA

    Kenneth Arnett & Patrick McNally

  9. Space Science Institute, Boulder, CO, USA

    Benton Clark

  10. Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia

    David O. Flannery & Peter Nemere

  11. California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA

    John Grotzinger

  12. XIA LLC, Hayward, CA, USA

    Jackson T. Harris

  13. Hertzberg Engineering, Mountain View, CA, USA

    Eric Hertzberg

  14. Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, USA

    Michael M. Tice

  15. Lunar and Planetary Institute, Houston, TX, USA

    Allan Treiman

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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Abigail C. Allwood.

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The Mars 2020 Mission

Edited by Kenneth A. Farley, Kenneth H. Williford and Kathryn M. Stack

Appendices

Appendix A: Parameters

Table 13 This is a complete list of parameters that are in place when a scan is initiated that are returned in data products. All of these can be changed by uplink
Full size table

Appendix B: Acronyms

\(\mu \)ASC:

micro Advanced Stellar Compass

6DoF:

six degrees of freedom

AFE:

analog front end

AFT:

allowable flight temperature

APXS:

Alpha Proton X-ray Spectrometer

BUE:

body unit electronics

CC:

Contamination Control

CDSM:

camera detectors SLI mount

CRF:

command reply frame

DAC:

digital-to-analog converter

DEM:

digital elevation model

DFE:

direct from Earth

DSPC:

detector signal processing chain

DTU:

Technical University of Denmark

ECF:

element-specific calibration factor

EM:

engineering model

ePUDL:

engineering uplink/downlink lead

FLI:

flood light illuminators

FLIE:

flood light illuminator electronics

FP:

fundamental parameter

FWHM:

full width at half maximum

gDRT:

gas Dust Removal Tool

HES:

Hall-effect sensor

HMR:

heat microbial reduction

HOP:

high-output paraffin

HVMM:

high-voltage multiplier module

HVPS:

high-voltage power supply

iFSW:

instrument flight software

iSDS:

instrument science data system

JPL:

Jet Propulsion Laboratory

LVCM:

low-voltage control module

MCC:

micro context camera

MCCE:

micro context camera electronics

MSL:

Mars Science Laboratory

MTF:

modulation transfer function

NTE:

not-to-exceed

NVR:

non-volatile residue

OFS:

optical fiducial subsystem

PDS:

Planetary Data Systems

PGE:

product generation executable

PIXL:

Planetary Instrument for X-ray Lithochemistry

PP:

Planetary Protection

PQV:

packaging qualification and verification

PTFE:

Polytetrafluoroethylene

RAMP:

rover avionics mounting panel

RANSAC:

random sample consensus

ROI:

region of interest

RSS:

root sum square

SCS:

sample caching system

SDD:

silicon-drift detectors

SDF:

Science Data Frame

SLIs:

structured light illuminators

SLIE:

structured light illuminator electronics

SMR:

spherically mounted retroreflectors

SMS:

small movement scans

SPRL:

Space Physics Research Laboratory

sPUDL:

science uplink/downlink lead

TEC:

thermoelectric cooler

TM/TC:

telemetry/command

TRT:

terrain relative translation

USGS:

United States Geological Survey

WCC:

worst cold case

WHC:

worst hot case

XRF:

X-ray fluorescence

XRSA:

X-ray source assembly

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Allwood, A.C., Wade, L.A., Foote, M.C. et al. PIXL: Planetary Instrument for X-Ray Lithochemistry. Space Sci Rev 216, 134 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11214-020-00767-7

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