Sensitivity and fragmentation calibration of the time-of-flight mass spectrometer RTOF on board ESA's Rosetta mission.

The European Space Agency's Rosetta spacecraft, with the Rosetta Orbiter Spectrometer for Ion and Neutral Analysis (ROSINA) onboard, has been following and observing comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko since summer 2014. Prior to this period, and due to a technical failure also during this period, optimization and calibration campaigns have been conducted on ground with the Reflectron-type Time Of Flight (RTOF) mass spectrometer as a preparatory work for the analysis of data recorded during the science phase of the mission. In this work, we show the evolution of the performance of RTOF, and demonstrate and quantify the sensitivity and functionality of RTOF onboard Rosetta. We also present a fragmentation and sensitivity database for the most abundant molecules observed around the comet such as H 2 O, CO, CO 2 , as well as the noble gases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]