Reaching an icy moon's surface will be the next challenge in exploration to understand one of the most interesting groups of bodies in the Solar System. Among the instruments that would be carried by a static in situ probe, such as the Europa Lander design, it would be a Raman spectrometer for analysis of the surface/subsurface at the landing site. Testing the performances of the technology needed for this instrument is essential to complete the mission science objectives, including the search for biomarkers. This is what we are doing with NEXT (iNsitu Exploration of planetary objects) project. We have prepared nine samples analogous to what we could find on the Europa surface, and we have studied them with different Raman spectrometers, including Flight Spare Model (FS) from RLS, a space qualified instrument on board the Rosalind Franklin rover of the ExoMars Mission.. The samples consisted of aqueous solutions with magnesium sulfate (5, 10 and 17 wt %) to which the amino acid alanine-L (0.5, 1.0 and 1.5 wt %) was added. The samples were assayed in liquid and solid phase state. The spectral results show that the amount of dissolved magnesium sulfate is perfectly recognizable (around 984 cm-1) and the concentration is possible to quantify. In addition, we are able to detect the presence of alanine-L using in all the conditions and performances at two frequency ranges. The first absorption peak is at 2937 cm-1, where the spectra obtained range from 2938 to 2949 cm-1. In the second detection (1250 to 1500 cm-1), alanine-L has 5 intensity peaks, which are easily detected in most cases, otherwise at least three of them. The results obtained show us that the different spectrometers, with different laser, power and resolution, allow us to detect the presence of alanine-L even in the lowest proportion in conditions of composition to the European crust, including with RLS FS.

Trabajo presentado en la 7ª edición de la Reunión de Ciencias Planetarias y Exploración del Sistema Solar (CPESS-7), celebrada en Valladolid (España), del 11 al 13 de julio de 2023