Use Of Gold In The Mars Global Surveyor
The Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) was developed by Jet Propulsion Laboratory of NASA. It was an American Spacecraft that was launched to research and monitor the possibility of life on Mars. The primary mission of MGS was completed in 2001, but in its third extended mission, the spacecraft failed to respond because it had gone into safe mode. Despite strenuous efforts, the problem could not really be resolved, and the mission officially ended in January 2007.
Developing a spacecraft is never easy, and when you talk about Mars Global Surveyor, the task looked near to impossible. Thanks to the technology, we now know the properties of gold metal that are useful in making numerous industrial machines. The use of gold in the manufacturing of technologies like microelectronics, telecommunications, optics, aviation and space has been increasing tremendously since last 2 decades. It has become vital resource for nations in the technological and economic competitiveness.
Without gold, the manufacturing of MGS was in no way possible. Let us have a look at the use of gold in the manufacturing of MGS. The Mylar sheets that protected the spacecraft from solar heat were gold coated. Other than spacecraft, a thick layer of gold was also used on the helmet-visors of the astronauts to protect them from any dangerous effect of solar radiation. For reliability, corrosion-resistant and static-free performance of satellite microelectronics, gold components were used that relay data around the globe instantly.
The Mars Global Surveyor was carrying a heavy gold-plated telescope mirror, which was a part of a laser device. This device was to chart the topography of the entire Martian surface over the period of 2 years, but unfortunately, it was blasted away in 1996.
The Orbiter Laser Altimeter (MOLA) of Mars Global Surveyor needed electroplated reflectivity, for which beryllium was used, and to make it an improved project, MOLA mirror was coated by the Laser Gold process of Epner Technology. The Epner Technology worked for years to become proficient in controlling processes like Laser Gold.
MOLA mirror was coated with gold for a special reason; the telescope mirror could never get the needed sensitivity otherwise, and Laser Gold coating was crucial to map operations around Mars. Gold is highly reflective, and this property is needed to capture the laser infrared radiations that were bounced back from Mars to the surface of the mirror.
Laser Gold is extraordinary reflective, reliable and corrosion-resistant, and that makes it incomparable to any other laser and optical application. Epner Company used improved Laser Gold-coated reflectors because NASA pushed them to do so. The reflectivity of the reflectors was then improved to increase the lamp life. The efficiency of the machines was increased to loose power consumption.
In shallow if we say, without the use of gold, the Mars Global Surveyor was a complete waste, it would not really be untrue. Gold is used in almost all the electronic equipments today that make it a vital resource. In computers, electronics and manufacturing of satellites and spacecrafts, gold has been widely used making the impossible, a possibility.
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