Surface and Exosphere Alterations by Landers (SEAL)¶
IM-4 · manifested · NASA payload
A quadrupole neutral mass spectrometer (1-60 Da) that samples gas during descent and after landing. It measures how lunar soil takes up and releases the lander's exhaust gases as the surface heats, what contamination the landing injects into the regolith, and the composition of the natural exosphere right at the surface.
PI: Mehdi Benna (NASA Goddard)
Built by: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (Planetary Environment Laboratory, which built the original instrument) (NASA center)
| Technology | neutral mass spectrometer (lander-induced contamination, exosphere) |
| Moon Base need | DN-018 L, DN-013 L (The study's reading. NASA says SEAL will show how a landing affects the composition of samples collected nearby. DN-018 L asks, among other things, for 'chemical contamination of the affected area' by lander plumes, and wants different sites and lander types; SEAL measures this chemistry (not topography) at one site on one lander type. Its surface exosphere measurements touch DN-013 L (near-surface volatiles) only in part. IM-4 is not on NASA's Moon Base phases page; its 2027 date falls in Phase 1 ('Now through 2028'), which is the study's reading.) |
| Route onto CLPS | NPLP; One of the NASA-Provided Lunar Payloads selected on 21 February 2019. NASA assigned it to Astrobotic's Peregrine (TO2-AB) in January 2020, then moved it off Peregrine in April 2023, with four other payloads, to keep the lander's descent margins. It was re-manifested on the CP-22 task order awarded to Intuitive Machines on 29 August 2024.; 2019-02-21 |
| Timeline | first funding 1990s (built for Nozomi; funder of the original not in the sources read); revived in 2019 under NPLP; first flight test 1998 (Nozomi flight twin); selected 2019-02-21 (NPLP); on Peregrine 2020-01-22; moved off 2023-04-06; CP-22 task order 2024-08-29; launch 2027 (NASA); landing not in public sources |
| On the Moon | not yet flown |
| FO | none |
Flights before the Moon¶
- Earth orbit or deep space: Neutral Mass Spectrometer (NMS) flight unit on Japan's Nozomi (Planet-B) Mars mission, built by Goddard, 1998. SEAL is a nearly identical replica of this instrument and is assembled from its refurbished spare. The flight unit launched on Nozomi in 1998; Nozomi failed to reach Mars orbit after malfunctions in 2003, so the instrument never made its planned Mars measurements. Whether it operated in cruise is not in the sources read. This corrects the study's earlier feeder-line map, which counted SEAL only as an Earth-based spare: its twin flew.
"SEAL is a nearly identical replica of the"
— hou.usra.edu: 2364.pdf, continues: Nozomi/NMS instrument"Spectrometer (NMS) instrument (Figure 1) flown in"
— hou.usra.edu: 2364.pdf, (continues: 1998 on the Japanese Nozomi mission (also known as Planet-B))"But a series of malfunctions in 2003 foiled Nozomi’s mission and consigned the SEAL instrument to the back of the closet."
— NASA Science Experiments to be Delivered to Moon by Commercial Landers - NASA"in preparation for the anticipated data analysis and science interpretation of the data after Mars orbit insertion"
— NTRS 20050179438, University of Michigan final report on the Planet-B NMS, 2005
Heritage hardware¶
- spare flight hardware: SEAL is the engineering model built in 1998 for Nozomi, kept in a vacuum chamber for about 15 years. In 2019 Benna's team, with two engineers who built the original, revived its ground electronics, recovered old documents and hardware, and added newer technology.
"was built in 1998 as an engineering model for Japan’s first interplanetary spacecraft, Nozomi"
— NASA Science Experiments to be Delivered to Moon by Commercial Landers - NASA"After sitting in a vacuum chamber for 15 years, a gas-sniffing instrument will finally get its chance to fly."
— NASA Science Experiments to be Delivered to Moon by Commercial Landers - NASA"His team ultimately brought the spectrometer back to life and even enhanced it with technology that wasn’t available in the late ’90s."
— NASA Science Experiments to be Delivered to Moon by Commercial Landers - NASA
Funding before the lunar flight¶
- SMD, NASA-Provided Lunar Payloads (in-house at Goddard). No amount is public; no SBIR, TechPort project or USAspending award names SEAL. The instrument reuses a 1998 spare, so most hardware cost was paid in the 1990s for Nozomi. (SMD NPLP; FY2019 on): amount not in public sources
"SEAL will be assembled"
— hou.usra.edu: 2364.pdf, (continues: from the refurbished spare unit of the Neutral Mass Spectrometer (NMS) instrument)
How it got onto CLPS¶
"The Surface and Exosphere Alterations by Landers payload will monitor how the landing affects the lunar exosphere."
— NASA Selects Experiments for Possible Lunar Flights in 2019 - NASA, 21 Feb 2019"Surface Exosphere Alterations by Landers"
— First Commercial Moon Delivery Assignments to Advance Artemis - NASA, 22 Jan 2020, Peregrine assignments"some payloads have been reallocated to future missions to maintain performance margins in Peregrine’s descent to the lunar surface"
— TO2-AB Science Payloads - NASA Science, update of 6 Apr 2023"Surface Exosphere Alterations by Landers (SEAL) - Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC)"
— TO2-AB Science Payloads - NASA Science, reallocated"The Surface Exosphere Alterations by Landers will investigate the chemical response of lunar regolith"
— NASA Awards Intuitive Machines Lunar South Pole Research Delivery - NASA, 29 Aug 2024
On the Moon¶
Manifested on IM-4 at Mons Mouton, more than six years after its first lander assignment.
"Surface and Exosphere Alterations by Landers (SEAL) aims to investigate the interaction of lunar regolith with volatiles from the lander's rocket exhaust."
— CLPS CP-22 Science - NASA Science
FO's role¶
Grade: none. No FO project, flight or report names SEAL, its PI or a mass spectrometer. Its flight lineage is the Nozomi spectrometer (1998), not FO. A spare refurbished from 1990s hardware had no FO test before the Moon in the sources. The study's earlier traceback grade (none found) stands.
"No FO record or report names SCALPSS, ROLSES, LN-1, the retroreflectors,"
— earlier finding of this study (not a public source)"Spare: SEAL "was built in 1998 as an engineering model for Japan’s first interplanetary spacecraft, Nozomi""
— earlier finding of this study (not a public source)
Who built it¶
"PI: Dr. Mehdi Benna, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center"
— CLPS CP-22 Science - NASA Science"This payload is managed by NASA Goddard."
— NASA Awards Intuitive Machines Lunar South Pole Research Delivery - NASA"NMS was built at Goddard Space Flight"
— hou.usra.edu: 2364.pdf, (continues: Center's Planetary Environment Laboratory (PEL))
Moon Base need¶
"It will give insight into how a spacecraft landing might affect the composition of samples collected nearby."
— NASA Awards Intuitive Machines Lunar South Pole Research Delivery - NASA"Measurement of chemical contamination of the affected area."
— Moon to Mars knowledge base: DN-018 L: In situ measurement of landing site alteration imaging at small scale on the lunar surface"Characterize the landing site alteration caused by rocket exhaust plumes interacting with"
— Moon to Mars knowledge base: DN-018 L: In situ measurement of landing site alteration imaging at small scale on the lunar surface"box with a date range: Phase 1 "Now through 2028""
— Moon to Mars knowledge base: Moon Base phases
Open questions¶
- What SEAL costs NASA (refurbishment, test, operations): not in public sources.
- Did the Nozomi NMS flight unit operate during cruise, and with what results? Not in the sources read.
- How the 1990s parts were requalified for launch and lunar thermal conditions: not in the sources read.