Mass-spectrometric in situ studies of cometary organics for p/Halley and options for the future

When the VEGA and GIOTTO spacecrafts flew by comet p/Halley in 1986 the mass-spectrometers Puma and PIA measured the composition of cometary dust particles impacting at speeds of well above 65 km/s. Ion formation upon impact lead to mostly atomic ions. However, a small fraction of the ions measured could be related to molecules. A sophisticated analysis allowed for the first time to point to the chemical nature of cometary organics based on actual mass spectra. With the instrument CoMA for the NASA-BMFT mission CRAF much higher mass-resolution and molecule masses become accessible for in situ measurement, and will yield complementary information to the gas chromatograph CIDEX also onboard CRAF.