Apollo 16 X-ray Fluorescence Spectrometer Instrument Overview =================== The Apollo 16 X-ray Fluorescence Spectrometer (XRFS), carried in the scientific instrument module (SIM) of the Command and Service Module (CSM) on the Apollo 16 mission, was used for orbital mapping of the lunar surface composition and X-ray galactic observations during the trans-earth coast. The instrument, nearly identical to the X-ray fluorescence spectrometer flown on Apollo 15, was designed to observe the intensity and characteristic energy distribution of the secondary, or fluorescent, x-rays produced by the interaction of solar x-rays with the lunar surface. A typical quiet Sun X-ray spectrum produces measurable x-ray responses from elements up to about atomic number 14 (silicon), higher solar activity can result in fluorescence of higher atomic number elements. The instrument consisted of two separate assemblies, the spectrometer processor, which also held the alpha spectrometer experiment and had a total mass of 59 kg, and the solar X-ray monitor. The instrument consumed 26 W during operation and 21 W during standby (including the heaters). The spectrometer processor assembly comprised three large-area proportional counters with state-of-the-art energy resolution, a set of large-scale filters for energy discrimination among the characteristic X-rays of aluminum, silicon, and magnesium, and a data handling system for count accumulation, for eight-channel pulse-height analysis, and for relaying the data to the spacecraft (SC) telemetry system. Temperature of the apparatus was maintained by heaters. The large-area proportional counters were collimated to fields of view of about 60 deg full width half maximum (although the actual field of view shows a complicated response function) and yielded a resolution on the lunar surface given as 111 by 148 km. However, the actual resolution was probably different; for more detail on the field-of-view and surface resolution, the user should read the report XRFS_CHANNELS_FOV_DISCREP.PDF in the DOCUMENT directory. Timing was done using the spacecraft 100 pps clock. The three counters each had a 0.0254 mm thick beryllium window with an area of 25 square centimeters, detector 1 was unfiltered, detector 2 had a magnesium filter, and detector 3 had an aluminum filter. Both filters were foils in the range of 0.005 - 0.0075 mm thick. The counters were filled to a pressure of 1 atmosphere with 90% argon, 9.5% carbon dioxide, and 0.5% helium. A stable power supply provided a bias voltage of 2250 V for the proportional counters. The three counters pointed towards the lunar surface during lunar orbital operations and were pointed towards X-ray sources in space during cruise operations. The spectrometer assembly was equipped with two calibration sources emitting characteristic K radiation, a magnesium K-alpha source and iron 55 (which decays to manganese 55). The calibration sources are mounted on a rod which can be rotated into the field of view of the proportional counters. This was scheduled to be done every 16 minutes for a period of 64 seconds. The solar monitor assembly was designed to provide a simultaneous measure of the incident solar x-ray flux in order to account for variations in solar activity and provide an estimate of the flux at the lunar surface and was mounted on the opposite side (sector IV) of the CSM facing the Sun during operation. The assembly consisted of a proportional counter with a 3.0 mm wide window cut into a 4.19 mm thick aluminum block overlain by a 2.36 mm thick tungsten block, cut to give a 106 degree field of view. The window was covered with a 0.025 mm beryllium foil shield and a second beryllium filter which was added to prevent the oversaturation which had occurred on the Apollo 15 solar monitor. (The thickness and transmission of the second beryllium filter were never documented. However Michael Bielefeld, in private communication in 2008, guessed that a spare 1-mil (0.001-inch) beryllium window was added given the time constraints and difficulty of milling thin beryllium windows.) Behind the window was a proportional counter filled to one atmosphere with 90% argon, 9.5% carbon dioxide, and 0.5% helium. The solar monitor had its own high voltage power supply and analog electronics. The instrument had four modes of operation. However, there is some discrepancy in the reported energy ranges of the channels. In normal mode, the three counters measured in seven equal-range channels over an energy range given as 0.69 - 3.00 keV and one final channel covering energies above 3.00 keV (0.69-1.02, 1.02-1.35, 1.35-1.68, 1.68-2.01, 2.01-2.34, 2.34-2.67, 2.67-3.00, 3.00+), and the solar monitor measured in seven equal-range channels from approximately 1.0 to 3.0 keV. In the calibration mode, the calibration sources were measured by detectors 1, 2, and 3. The third mode was the same as the normal mode except the energy range boundaries of detector 1 were roughly doubled to seven equal-range channels from 1.4 to 7.6 keV, and one above 7.6 keV (1.4-2.3, 2.3-3.2, 3.2-4.1, 4.1-4.9, 4.9-5.8, 5.8-6.7, 6.7-7.6, 7.6+). The final mode used the same spectral range as the third mode but lunar-surface detectors 1, 2, and 3 measured the calibration sources. For a description of the discrepancies in the published energy boundaries of the channels see XRFS_CHANNELS_FOV_DISCREP.PDF in the DOCUMENT directory. The Apollo 16 X-ray spectrometer returned the first data at about 2:00 UT on 20 April 1972, 80 hours GET (ground elapsed time, or time since launch) on the third orbit. Due to difficulties encountered during the flight, the experiment was initially operated for about 12 hours in a roughly 18 x 111 km orbit and then turned off. The orbit was then circularized to roughly 110 x 110 km and the experiment turned on again on 21 April at approximately 4:00 UT. Approximately 80 hours of observations of the lunar surface were made in total. The coverage between the Apollo 15 and Apollo 16 missions overlapped between about 50 and 100 degrees and the results showed that the measurements were consistent for the two experiments. Galactic X-ray observations were made during trans-Earth coast. The experiment performed nominally and allowed production of compositional maps of 20% of the lunar surface. For a discussion of the pre- and in-flight calibration tests and the data reduction process for the Apollo X-Ray Fluorescence Spectrometers see XRFS_CALIBRATION.PDF located in the DOCUMENT directory of the PDS3 datasets, A15C-L-XRFS-2-SURFACE-XRAY-COUNTS-V1.0 or A16C-L-XRFS-2-SURFACE-XRAY-COUNTS-V1.0. References ========== Adler, I., J.I. Trombka, J. Gerard, P. Lowman, R. Schamadebeck, H. Blodgett, E. Eller, L. Yin, R. Lamothe, P. Gorenstein, and P. Bjorkholm, Apollo 15 Geochemical X-Ray Fluorescence Experiment: Preliminary Report, Science, Vol. 175, pp. 436-440, 1972, doi:10.1126/science.175.4020.436. Adler, I., J. Gerard, J.I. Trombka, R. Schamadebeck, P. Lowman, H. Blodgett, L. Yin, E. Eller, and R. Lamothe, The Apollo 15 X-Ray Fluorescence Experiment, Proc. Lunar Sci Conf. 3rd, Vol 3, pp. 2157-2178, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1972. Adler, I., J.I. Trombka, J. Gerard, P. Lowman, R. Schamadebeck, H. Blodgett, E. Eller, L. Yin, R. Lamothe, G. Osswald, P. Gorenstein, P. Bjorkholm, H. Gursky, and B. Harris, Apollo 16 Geochemical X-ray Fluorescence Experiment: Preliminary Report, Science, Vol. 177, pp. 256-259, 1972, doi:0.1126/science.177.4045.256. Adler, I., J.I., Trombka, R. Schmadebeck, P. Lowman, and B. Harris, Results of the Apollo 15 and 16 X-ray experiment, Proc. Lunar Sci Conf. 4th, Vol. 3, 2783-2792, Pergamon Press, New York, NY, 1973. Adler, I., J.I. Trombka, J. Gerard, R. Schmadebeck, and P. Lowman, X-ray fluorescence experiment, Apollo 15 Preliminary Science Report, NASA SP-289, 17-1, published by NASA, Washington, D.C., 1972. Adler, I., J. Trombka, J. Gerard, P. Lowman, R. Schmadebeck, H. Blodget, E. Eller, L. Yin, R. Lamothe, G. Osswald, P. Gorenstein, P. Bjorkholm, H. Gursky, B. Harris, L. Golub, and F.R. Harnden, Jr., X-ray fluorescence experiment, Apollo 16 Preliminary Science Report, NASA SP-315, 19-1, published by NASA, Washington, D.C., 1972. Adler I., J. Trombka, J. Gerard, R. Schmadebeck, P. Lowman, H. Blodget, L. Yin, E. Eller, R. Lamothe, P. Gorenstein, P. Bjorkholm, B. Harris, and H. Gursky, The Apollo X-Ray Fluorescence Experiment, NASA TM X-65834, March, 1972. Adler, I., R. Schmadebeck, J.I. Trombka, P. Gorenstein, and P. Bjorkholm, The Apollo 15 and 16 X-Ray Fluorescence Experiment, Space Science Instrumentation, 1, 305-316, 1975. Adler, I., R. Schmadebeck, J.I. Trombka, P. Gorenstein, and P. Bjorkholm, Apollo 15 and 16 X-ray fluorescence experiment, Space Science Instrumentation, Vol. 1, No. 3, 305-316, 1975. Apollo 15 Preliminary Science Report, NASA SP-289, published by NASA, Washington, D.C., 1972. Apollo 16 Preliminary Science Report, NASA SP-315, published by NASA, Washington, D.C., 1972. ASE, Final Report - Apollo Lunar Orbital Sciences Program Alpha and X-Ray Spectrometers, NASA CR-128649, American Science and Engineering (ASE), Inc., Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1972. Bielefeld, M., R. Reedy, A. Metzger, J. Trombka, and J. Arnold, Proc. Lunar Sci. Conf. 7th, pp. 2661-2676, 1976. Bielefeld, M.J., C.G. Andre, E.M. Eliason, P.E. Clark, I. Adler, and J.I. Trombka, Imaging of lunar surface chemistry from orbital X-ray data, Proc. Lunar Sci. Conf. 8th, 1, 901-908, 1977. Clark, P.E., and I. Adler, Utilization of independent solar flux measurements to eliminate nongeochemical variation in X-ray fluorescence data, Proc. Lunar Sci. Conf. 9th, 3, 3029-3036, 1978. Clark, P.E., and B.R. Hawke, Compositional variation in the Hadley Apennine region, Proc. Lunar Sci. Conf. 12th, 727-749, 1981. Clark, P.E., and B.R. Hawke, The relationship between geology and geochemistry in the Undarum/Spumans/Balmer region of the moon, Earth Moon and Planets, 38, 97-112, 1987. Clark, P.E., and B.R. Hawke, The lunar farside: the nature of the highlands east of Smythii, Earth Moon and Planets, 53, 93-10, 1991. Clark, P.E., C.G. Andre, I. Adler, J. Weidner, and M. Podwysocki, Palus Somni: anomalies in the correlation of Al/Si X-ray fluorescence ratios and broad-spectrum albedo., Geophys. Res. Lett., 3, 421-424, 1976. Clark, P.E., E. Eliason, C. Andre C., and I. Adler, A new color correlation method applied to XRF Al/Si ratios and other lunar remote sensing data, Proc. Lunar Sci. Conf. 9th, 3, 3015-3027, 1978. Gilman, D., A.E. Metzger, R.H. Parker, L.G. Evans, and J.I. Trombka, The Distance and Spectrum of the Apollo Gamma-Ray Burst, Astrophysical Journal, 236, 951-957, 1980, 10.1086/157822. Jagoda, N., K. Kubierschky, R. Frank, P. Bjorkholm, and P. Gray, The Apollo X-ray Fluorescence Spectrometer, IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science, Vol. NS-21, 194-200, Feb., 1974, doi:10.1109/TNS.1974.4327462. Lauderdale, W., and W. Eichelman, Apollo Scientific Experiments Data Handbook, NASA Technical Memorandum X-58131, JSC-09166, Chapter 27 published by NASA Johnson Space Center, Houston, Texas, Aug. 1974 (revised Apr. 1976). Metzger, A.E., R.H. Parker, D. Gilman, L.E. Peterson, and J.I. Trombka, Observation of a Cosmic Gamma-Ray Burst on Apollo 16, I - Temporal Variability and Energy Spectrum, Astrophysical Journal, 194, L19-L25, 1974, doi:10.1086/181660. Trombka, J.I., E.L, Eller. R.L. Schmadebeck, I. Adler, A.E. Metzger, D. Gilman, P. Gorenstein, and P. Bjorkholm, Observation of a Cosmic Gamma-Ray Burst on Apollo 16, II - X-Ray Time Profile and Source Location, Astrophysical Journal, 194, L27-L33, 1974, doi:10.1086/181661. Trombka, J.I., J.R. Arnold, I. Adler, A.E. Metzger, and R.C. Reedy, Lunar elemental analysis obtained from the Apollo gamma-ray and x-ray remote sensing experiment, Proceedings of the Soviet-American Conference on the Cosmochemistry of the Moon and Planets, Moscow, Soviet Union, NASA TM X-72195, 1974. Source ====== The NASA Space Science Data Coordinated Archive (NSSDCA, formerly NSSDC) provided this description.