Application of a modified commercial laser mass spectrometer as a science analog of the Mars Organic Molecule Analyzer (MOMA)

TL;DR

This study modifies a commercial laser mass spectrometer to serve as a Mars Organic Molecule Analyzer (MOMA) analog, enabling laboratory testing of organic detection in mineral samples relevant to Mars exploration.

Contribution

The paper presents modifications to a commercial LDI-MS instrument to closely mimic MOMA, facilitating validation and testing for Mars organic molecule detection.

Findings

Successfully detected organic standards in mineral matrices.

Enabled structural identification of organics in complex mixtures.

Validated performance against existing Mars analog instruments.

Abstract

The ESA/NASA Rosalind Franklin rover, planned for launch in 2028, will carry the first laser desorption ionization mass spectrometer (LDI-MS) to Mars as part of the Mars Organic Molecule Analyzer (MOMA) instrument. MOMA will contribute to the astrobiology goals of the mission through the analysis of potential organic biosignatures. Due to minimal availability of comparable equipment, laboratory analyses using similar techniques and instrumentation have been limited. Until now, the Thermo LTQ-XL platform has been used as the main analog instrument by the MOMA team despite significant differences between the instruments. In this study, we present a series of modifications that bring this commercial benchtop LDI-MS closer to MOMA operating parameters, enabling rapid testing of samples for MOMA validation experiments. We demonstrate that our instrument can detect organic standards in mineral matrices, with MS/MS enabling structural identification even in complex mixtures. Performance was additionally validated against an existing LDI-MS prototype through the comparison of spectra derived from natural samples from a Mars analog site in the Atacama Desert. Lastly, analysis of Mars analog synthetic mineral mixes highlights the capacity of the instrument to characterize both the mineralogical and organic signals in mission-relevant samples. This modified benchtop instrument will serve as a platform for collaborative research to prepare for MOMA operations, test LDI parameters, and generate pre-flight reference data in support of the mission science and astrobiology specific goals.