This project will advance our technologies for developing miniature, lightweight time-of-flight mass spectrometers (TOF-MS) using novel ion optical assembly and electronics methods. TOF-MS instruments are used on planetary missions to analyze unknown materials to determine their atomic, isotopic, and molecular composition.

Reducing the number of individual parts and employing self-centering ion steering and focusing components and designs will allow scalability to smaller size while maintaining mechanical precision over temperature. This should permit such instruments to be used on a wider variety of resource-constrained missions.