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

ABSTRACT

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.