(report 2015)

OGMS-SA is a space demonstrator using a very high resolution spectrometric technique (Cavity Ring-Down Spectrometer). The scientific goals are to study in-situ the degradation of organic compounds exposed to UV and cosmic radiation outside the protection of the Earth’s atmosphere. Current techniques are not suitable for such an analysis in-situ and scientists are forced to expose organic samples on board the International Space Station) and wait for their return to Earth for analysis, with the loss of all the temporal evolution of the degradation. Such studies carried out for many years are important for exobiology and are essential for understanding samples found on the surface of solar system objects such as Mars, Titan, comets or asteroids.

OGMS-SA is a CubeSat project from UPEC University developed at LISA in Créteil, in partnership with LPC2E in Orléans and in collaboration with CapTown CPUT in South Africa and VSGC in Virginia in the USA. Selected by ESEP in 2013 and integrated in CCERES, it is in the construction phase for a launch expected in 2016, with the support of CNES (JANUS program).