An Overview of the LADEE Ultraviolet-Visible Spectrometer

The Ultraviolet-Visible Spectrometer (UVS) instrument, which flew on the Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) spacecraft (SC), was one of three science instruments used to characterize the lunar exosphere. UVS is a point spectrograph operating between 230–810 nm and used its two optical apertures to make observations of the exosphere just above the surface at a range of local times and altitudes, as well as making solar occultation measurements at the lunar sunrise terminator. The instrument was led out of NASA Ames Research Center with primary hardware being provided by Draper Laboratories. Final instrument integration, testing and operations were performed at NASA Ames. Over the course of the 140-day LADEE mission UVS acquired more than 1 million spectra, providing a unique data set for lunar exosphere gasses and dust. © 2014, Springer Science+Business Media B.V. (outside the USA).