GAP (Gas Analytic Package)
Of all the onboard systems, the Gas Analytic Package (GAP) was the primary tool to describe soil composition on a molecular level. To achieve this, the experiment included:
- a Pyrolizer/Thermal-Differential Analyser (TDA), provided by IKI,
- a Gas-Chromatograph (GC), comprising the following elements:
- GAP-GC-CA, Chromatographic Columns delivered by LATMOS,
- GAP-GC-TDLAS, a Laser Spectrometer delivered by GSMA,
- and a Mass-Spectrometer, provided by the Vernaski Institute of Geochemistry.
The GC’s role was to separate and analyse permanent gases and organic gases resulting from prior sample treatment, prior to analysis by the Mass Spectrometer (MS). This step would have been carried out using two analysis processes (the two chromatographic columns), each dedicated to one of the two types of compounds.
Gas Analytic Package, comprising the following elements: the
Thermal-Differential Analyser (TDA, left), the Gas-Chromatograph (GC, centre),
and the Mass Spectrometer (MS, right).