Portable Device Analyzes Rocks and Minerals
inXitu, Inc. specializes in developing technologies required to enable the next generation of scientific instruments used for materials analysis. The technology used in inXitus portable rock and mineral analyzer received a prestigious R&D 100 award and was chosen to fly on the Mars Science Laboratory rover scheduled for launch in 2009. www.inxitu.com
Transcript
00:00:01 green cheese a blue moon the red planet as we explore new worlds we learned their true composition looking at the materials that may hold the key to understanding of planets origins and life forms through NASA small business innovation research or SBIR program a small company in Mountain View California is creating new technologies for sampling and analyzing materials on
00:00:29 other planets and here at home in situ incorporated develops innovative x-ray techniques and tools that identify and examine those materials wherever they may be one of the firm's technologies has been integrated into NASA's 2009 Mars Science Laboratory mission they had a really serious problem with the reliability of the system and as part of the SBIR we developed a mechanical
00:00:57 implementation that made it reliable and easy to drive and something that would really work in an effort to improve the technologies they created for the 2009 Mars mission the firm is now exploring new concepts through SBIR contracts with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory with funding from Ames Research Center the firm is developing an air purification technology that uses carbon nanotubes
00:01:22 cathodes for future space travel the intention is to miniaturize it to the point that we can put it inside a vehicle and the vehicle could be space shuttle could be you know a spacecraft you inhabited spacecraft or it could be an airplane who knows even a card in situ use technology is also being transferred to other applications here on earth they've commercialized a
00:01:46 portable sampling unit for field research the unit is called Terra Terra is a direct byproduct of all the development we have done for NASA for these this flight mission and then includes the technology we've developed on the SBIR project so it's a small instrument that does pretty much everything the Mars instrument does but in a much more affordable package that
00:02:12 people can use the field compared to other similar x-ray diffraction units Tara is very small and compact is the first time researchers have been able to actually use this type of method in the field scientists have used a prototype of terror in the field to simulate how to remotely interact with the instruments when conducting experiments on Mars
00:02:34 partnering with Ames in the Department of Homeland Security the firm has received an SBIR phase 3 contract to develop a new type of airport baggage screening system the new system would speed up the screening process for the art world in situ received funding from the Getty trust to create a non-destructive unit for cultural heritage research that's a derivative of
00:02:59 the Mars project so it's read and taking the technology that we have developed back to earth and very practical issues in that case it's a it's a paint analyzer so the the Getty conservation Institute is interested in having an x-ray diffraction instrument that can be used on site the instrument will allow the Institute to examine artwork in place rather than having to take the art
00:03:26 to another location in the world of science research performed in situ means in the original position as NASA explores the galaxy in situ incorporated plans to have its technologies help with experiments done in place wherever that may be