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M. Grande, B. Kellett (Rutherford Appleton Laboratory , UK), D-CIXS Team
The ESA SMART-1 mission arrived in operational orbit around the Moon successfully on 27 Feb 2005. A major payload element is D-CIXS, a Compact X-ray Spectrometer which provides high quality spectroscopic mapping of the Lunar surface. At the same time it demonstrates a radically novel approach to building this type of instrument. We aim to achieve ground breaking science within a resource envelope far smaller than previously thought possible for this type of instrument. It consists of a high throughput spectrometer, which will perform spatially localised X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy, and a solar monitor to provide the calibration of the illumination necessary to produce global maps of absolute Lunar elemental abundances.
The instrument has been commissioned and is working well. We will present data from the cruise phase and first Lunar results. A highlight is the first unambiguous remote sensing of Calcium at the Moon.
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Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, 37 #3
© 2004. The American Astronomical Soceity.