UMIS: The Ultraviolet Micromirror Imaging Spectrograph

In this project, we demonstrate a prototype instrument to improve upon current capabilities in UV imaging spectroscopy for planetary science. The instrument is a UV micromirror spectrograph with a wide variety of potential applications including Discovery- and New Frontiers-class missions.

The state-of-the-art UV imaging spectrographs, such as the SwRI-built Alice instruments (including Juno UVS, Rosetta Alice and LRO LAMP) and the LASP-built Cassini UVIS, MAVEN IUVS, and Hope EMUS, return useful datasets from their targets and have opened up the field to the next questions to address. Recent technological advances have enabled instrument improvements for the next generation of planetary science missions. Furthermore, a range of possible upcoming missions could successfully utilize such improved UV instrumentation.

The goal of this program is to develop a prototype instrument for adaptive integral field far-UV spectroscopy. By utilizing a pair of analog micromirror devices, this instrument will be capable of dissecting the focal plane and re-forming it on the focal plane to overcome the limitations of spectral confusion. The TRL of the system is currently estimated at 4 as advanced through a prototype breadboard developed under the NASA funded PICASSO grant. We expect to advance the TRL to 6 through this MatISSE program to be ready for flight on future missions.

Potential science applications of the instrument include atmosphere characterization, in particular using stellar occultations. A highlight of the micromirror concept is that the array allows for the potential to observe several stellar occultations simultaneously, while also probing atmospheric composition and density at multiple locations within a planet’s atmosphere. Such a capability will be particularly critical in future missions to Titan, a likely target of a future orbiter. Furthermore, thin atmosphere and plume characterization will be useful at upcoming comet missions, for an Enceladus orbiter, and perhaps even a KBO mission. In addition to the study of gases, the UV capabilities of the instrument will also allow for critical surface composition characterization, particularly useful on asteroid (including Ceres) and Trojan missions, for instance. Another area of importance in the Visions and Voyages planetary decadal survey, and likely important in the next decadal survey as well, is an Ice Giants mission to the Uranus and/or Neptune system. For such a mission, a capable UV instrument will be of extreme value for studying atmospheric composition as well as for addressing questions about the moons of these planets and whether they harbor subsurface oceans.