Overview of Activities

Scientific goals: search for lunar water

Despite disagreements on the mission scenario, Russian planetary scientists mulled an ambitious goal for a cooperative lunar mission with India – the search for water ice. The hard-to-achieve but potentially critical for the future of space exploration task of touching lunar water was to be discussed during a visit of the Indian delegation to Moscow in March 2009. "We wanted this mission to be not simply a technological project aiming to insert a satellite in orbit around the Moon and to land another one on its surface, but rather have this pair of an orbiter and a lander accomplish a fundamental scientific task," says Aleksandr Zakharov, the deputy director of Moscow-based Space Research Institute, IKI. Russian scientists narrowed the scientific goals of the project to two major fields – seismic research and exploration of polar regions of the Moon.

Source: www.russianspaceweb.com

Time-of-flight mass spectrometry (TOFMS)

is a method of mass spectrometry in which an ion's mass-to-charge ratio is determined via a time measurement. Ions are accelerated by an electric field of known strength. This acceleration results in an ion having the same kinetic energy as any other ion that has the same charge. The velocity of the ion depends on the mass-to-charge ratio (heavier ions of the same charge reach lower speeds, although ions with higher charge will also increase in velocity). The time that it subsequently takes for the ion to reach a detector at a known distance is measured. This time will depend on the velocity of the ion, and therefore is a measure of its mass-to-charge ratio. From this ratio and known experimental parameters, one can identify the ion.

Kerntätigkeiten:

- Hochvakuumlöten von Keramik-Metall Verbindungen;

- Kathodenentwicklung

- Herstellung Microparts

- Titan-Keramik, Niobium-Keramik

- Beschichtungsentwicklungen

- Ingenieurstätigkeiten

Kerntätigkeiten:

Schweissverbindungen von Sondermetallen,

Löten vakuumdichter Hochspannungsdurchführungen

Mikroheizerherstellung durch optimiertes Siebdruckverfahren