• Summary: SEAL perform an in-situ measurement of lunar volatiles in the aftermath of a known perturbation (landing) which provides an opportunity to relate regolith in the lunar environment to its properties found in the laboratory. Significant studies have been devoted to volatile adsorption onto lunar soils sampled in the Apollo missions. The interaction of spent rocket propellant with the lunar regolith is a complex convolution of size-selective regolith mobilization, species-selective adsorption interactions of the propellant gases with the regolith surfaces, and penetration of gases into the regolith bed. SEAL will characterize regolith outgassing in the days following exposure to exhaust gases to collect valuable data on how pristine regolith interacts with volatile species such as N2, H2, NH3, H2O, CO, and hydrocarbons.  This data will be used to calibrate other instruments to distinguish signatures of surface composition from contamination caused by stationary landers.
• Type of Instrument: Neutral Mass Spectrometer
• Measures: Volatile gases
• Task Order: TO2-Astrobotic
• Lead Development Organization:  NASA GSFC
• Payload PI:  Dr. Mehdi Benna

• Summary: During lunar exploration missions outside of the Earth’s protective atmosphere, exposure to space radiation has a detrimental effect on the health of the astronauts. Lunar surface environments present a greater radiation risk to the astronaut than Low Earth Orbit (LEO). There are two sources of radiation risk for lunar surface environments. The first source of risk is the total radiation dose from Galactic Cosmic Rays, which is about twice as high on the lunar surface as in LEO. The second source of risk is from space weather events resulting from solar activity. The Linear Energy Transfer Spectrometer (LETS) is a radiation monitor that is derived from heritage hardware flown on Orion EFT-1 and slated to fly on the Orion EM-1 mission that will enable acquisition of knowledge of the lunar radiation environment and demonstrate the capabilities of a system on the lunar surface. The LETS radiation sensor is a solid-state silicon Timepix detector that is derived from heritage hardware that was flown on Orion EFT-1. This sensor will measure the rate of incident radiation providing, information that is critical to understanding and mitigating the hazardous environment that people will experience as they explore the surface of the Moon.
• Type of Instrument: Radiation Sensor
• Key Measurement: Radiation
• Task Order: TO2-Astrobotic
• Lead Development Organization:  NASA JSC
• Payload PI:  Dr. Edward Semones

• Summary: PILS a small testbed for solar cells that leveraged hardware designs from prior in-space experiments on the International Space Station to demonstrate the operation of these cells on the lunar surface.  This platform includes solar cells from multiple organizations that represent the current state of the art in III-V and Silicon technologies and some solar cells that are in qualification for future use. It also includes a solar charging experiment to shape design considerations of high voltage solar arrays on the Moon that could power long-duration missions, such as in-situ resource application systems and other lunar surface assets. Goals of the experiment include enhancing existing models for future power generation systems, determining charge buildup on solar arrays and arcing hazards in the lunar environment, and Increasing TRL of cells and arc detection capability.
• Key Measurement:  Temperature, Current/Voltage, Charge Counts
• Type of Instrument: Experiment with Solar Cells
• Task Order: TO2-Astrobotic
• Lead Development Organization:  NASA GRC
• Payload PIs:  Jeremiah McNatt and Dr. Timothy Peshek

• Summary: The payload includes a spectrometer context imager and a longwave calibration sensor. It measures surface and subsurface hydration (H₂O and OH) and CO₂ and methane (CH₄) while simultaneously mapping surface morphology and surface temperature. The plan is for the measurements to take place during rover traverse when integrated onto a rover, throughout areas of targeted volatile investigation (called science stations), and during drilling activities. This instrument was created at NASA Ames Research Center. In total, it has three specific instruments: the near-infrared spectrometer, Ames imaging module, and longwave calibration sensor.
  • “The near-infrared spectrometer captures the reflected spectra of the lunar surface when illuminated with light of a variety of wavelengths. This information can be used to determine the material properties of the lunar surface and identify if water or other materials are present in an image. The Ames imaging module is a camera that captures images to contextualize the spectrometer data. The longwave calibration system precisely measures the temperature of the lunar surface to calibrate data from the spectrometer.” (January, 2021)
• Type of Instrument: Two-channel Near-infrared Point Spectrometer
• Key Measurement: Volatile composition of surface and subsurface
• Task Order: TO2-Astrobotic
• Lead Development Organization:  NASA ARC
• Payload PI:  Dr. Anthony Colaprete

Note: See also TO20A-VIPER

• Summary: The NSS instrument will determine the abundance of hydrogen-bearing materials and the bulk regolith composition at the landing site and measure any time variations in hydrogenous volatile abundance during the diurnal cycle. NSS can measure the total volume of hydrogen up to three feet below the surface, providing high-resolution ground truth data for measurements made from instruments in orbit around the Moon. NSS measures the number and energy of neutrons present in the lunar surface environment, which can be used to infer the amount of hydrogen present in the environment. This detection is possible because when neutrons strike a hydrogen atom, they lose a lot of energy.
• Type of Instrument: Neutron Spectrometer
• Key Measurement: Volatile composition in the near sub-surface; Measures cosmic ray-generated neutrons using two helium gas-proportional counters to detect thermal and epithermal neutrons with less than 0.1% uncertainty
• Task Order: TO2-Astrobotic
• Lead Development Organization:  NASA ARC
• Payload PI:  Dr. Richard Elphic

Note: See also TO20A-VIPER

• Summary: The NMLS instrument consists of two neutron counters (neutron counts above 0.4 eV and the full spectrum) that measure low energy thermal and epithermal neutron flux (a fancy way of saying the slowest moving neutrons and slightly faster neutrons) [LSM(X1] [H(2] at the lunar surface. Detections of these neutrons confirm the presence of hydrogen (and therefore confirm the presence of water) and rare earth elements. These observations will provide a “ground truth” for calibrating orbital measurements, meaning observations from the surface of the Moon that allow scientists to validate measurements made from orbit (and thus very far away)    
• Type of Instrument: Neutron Spectrometer that is based on the Fast Neutron Spectrometer (FNS) instrument currently operating on the ISS.
• Key Measurement: Thermal and Epithermal Neutron Flux
• Task Order: TO2-Astrobotic
• Lead Development Organization:  NASA MSFC
• Payload PI:  Peter Bertone

• Summary: PITMS will characterize the lunar exosphere after descent and landing, and throughout the lunar day, to understand the release and movement of volatile species. Previous missions have demonstrated the presence of volatiles at the lunar surface, but significant questions remain about the where those volatiles came from and how they are transported across the lunar surface. Investigating how the lunar exosphere changes over the course of a lunar day can provide insight into the transport process for volatiles on the Moon. PITMS will provide measurements of the exosphere that would significantly improve our knowledge of the abundance and behavior of volatiles on the Moon, linking the lunar surface to LADEE measurements, and inform robotic and human mission design by characterizing the interaction between surface assets and the lunar environment. The instrument has the ability to measure the low level of gases expected in the lunar exosphere and released by plume-regolith interaction. The primary goal is to monitor the tenuous near-surface lunar exosphere in response to natural (e.g., diurnal temperature cycle) and artificial (e.g., landing event, lander activities) stimuli.
• Type of Instrument:  Ion trap mass spectrometer previously developed for ESA’s Rosetta mission. The spectrometer has a unit mass resolution and an m/z range of 2 to 150 Da
• Key Measurement:  volatile composition in the lunar exosphere
• Task Order: TO2-Astrobotic
• Lead Development Organization:  NASA GSFC
• Payload PI:  Dr. Barbara Cohen

• Summary: MAG will characterize vector magnetic fields to further an understanding of energy and particle pathways at the lunar surface.  The instrument will seek to measure the magnetic fields within the tail lobe of the Earth’s magnetosphere at local noon and within the solar wind and in the lunar wake at earlier and later times in the day. The primary science goal for MAG is to understand the control of hydroxylation by the local magnetic field, subsurface electrical conductivity, and any local magnetic anomalies encountered.
• Type of Instrument: two-range (512 nT and Earth’s field range), DC vector fluxgate magnetometer
• Key Measurement: magnetic fields
• Task Order: TO2-Astrobotic
• Lead Development Organization: NASA GSFC
• Payload PI:  Dr. Michael Purucker

• Summary: MSolo will identify low-molecular-weight volatiles with unit mass resolution to at high enough resolution to measure isotopes of elements including hydrogen (D/H) and oxygen (O¹⁸/O¹⁶). In other words, we can identify different molecules in the exosphere of the Moon, including possible water, and gather information about where those volatiles originally came from. MSolo will measure the gasses coming from the lander during touchdown to identify what the lander brought to the lunar surface and will monitor for changes as the mission progresses. MSolo will work in tandem with other co-manifested instruments, such as NIRVSS, to evaluate freshly churned regolith for evidence of ice and other volatiles – materials that readily evaporate at only moderately warm temperatures.
• Type of Instrument: Quadrupole Mass Spectrometer
• Key Measurement: volatile composition at the lunar surface
• Task Order: TO2-Astrobotic
• Lead Development Organization:  NASA KSC
• Payload PI: Dr. Janine Captain, Dr. Jackie Quinn

Note: See also TO20A-VIPER and PRIME-1

• Summary: A retroreflector bounces any light that shines on it directly backward (180deg from the incoming light). The LRA is a collection of eight of these, each a 1.25-cm diameter glass corner cube prism, all embedded in an aluminum hemisphere (painted gold as shown here) and is mounted to the lander deck. This design ensures that the LRA can retroreflect (i.e., bounce) laser light from other orbiting and landing spacecraft over a wide range of incoming directions and efficiently retroreflect the laser signal directly back at the originating spacecraft. This enables precision laser ranging, which is a measurement of the distance between the orbiting or landing spacecraft to the LRA on the lander. The LRA is a passive optical instrument and will function as a permanent fiducial (i.e., location) marker on the Moon for decades to come. (Note: this LRA design is too small for laser ranging from the Earth).
• Type of Instrument: Passive optical device that reflects laser light directly backward (for laser ranging)
• Key Measurement: Provides marker for future assets to determine precise locations
• Task Order: TO2-Astrobotic
• Lead Development Organization:  NASA GSFC
• Payload PI:  Dr. Xiaoli Sun

Note: See also TO2-IM, TO20A-VIPER, and PRIME-1