EMS: Fast track development of a miniaturized mass spectrometer for lunar applications

The Astrobotic M1 mission, as the first mission of NASA s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program, is scheduled to land in the Lacus Mortis region of the Moon in early 2022. Among its payloads it will carry the Peregrine Ion Trap Mass Spectrometer (PITMS), an instrument supplied by NASA GSFC that is dedicated to the investigation of the lunar exosphere, and which includes as its core component the ESA-provided Exospheric Mass Spectrometer (EMS). EMS was developed under an ESA contract by an academic/industrial consortium led by Open University (UK) using a fast track development approach that aimed at delivery of a Proto-Flight Model (PFM) instrument with drastically reduced development time. The chosen development approach and the demanding project schedule (18 months from contract start to flight hardware delivery) posed a number of specific project management challenges for successful development of the instrument within the ESA flight hardware development framework and under constraints imposed by the Covid-19 pandemic. With an as-built envelope of HWD of 168 149 127mm, a mass of 1.48kg and a typical power consumption during measurement not exceeding 9.5 Watts the instrument has modest resource requirements. EMS can be re-used in different future application scenarios, including investigations of the lunar exosphere, analysis of gases evolved from acquired samples, and monitoring aspects of the environmental impact of landers and robotic and human activities on the lunar environment. © 2021 International Astronautical Federation, IAF. All rights reserved.

Small business survival capabilities and fiscal programs: Evidence from oakland

Using City of Oakland data during COVID-19, we document that small business components of survival capabilities-revenue resiliency, labor flexibility, and committed costs-vary by firm size. Nonemployer businesses rely on low cost structures to survive. Microbusinesses (1-to-5 employees) depend on 14% greater revenue resiliency. Enterprises (6-to-50 employees) use labor flexibility to survive, but face 10%- to-20% higher residual closure risk from committed costs. The evidence argues for size-targeting of financial support programs, including committed costs and revenue-based lending programs. Supporting the capabilities mapping, we find that the PPP increased medium-run survival probability by 20.5% specifically for microbusinesses. © 2021 Cambridge University Press. All rights reserved.