Helsinki University of Technology, Laboratory of Space Technology Espoo, March 2005 REPORT 56 CONCEPT EVALUATION OF MARS DRILLING AND SAMPLING INSTRUMENT Matti Anttila TEKNILLINEN KORKEAKOULU TEKNISKA HÖGSKOLAN HELSINKI UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY Helsinki University of Technology Laboratory of Space Technology Espoo, 2004 Concept Evaluation of Mars Drilling and Sampling Instrument Matti Anttila Dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Science in Technology to be presented with due permission of the Department of Electrical and Communications Engineering, for public examination and debate in Auditorium S4 at Helsinki University of Technology (Espoo, Finland) on the 27th of May, 2005, at 12 noon. ISBN 951-22-7646-1 (printed) ISBN 951-22-7647-X (electronic) ISSN 0786-8154 Helsinki University of Technology Mailing address: Laboratory of Space Technology P.O.Box 3000 FIN-02015 HUT Finland Street address: Otakaari 5 A FIN-02150 Espoo Tel. +358 9 451 2378 Fax. +358 9 451 2898 E-mail: [email protected] http://www.space.hut.fi © Matti Anttila ISBN 951-22-7646-1 ISSN 0786-8154 Picaset Oy Helsinki 2005 On the surface of Mars, the Sun is about half the size as seen from Earth. The nights are colder than Antarctica has ever been, and even summer days are freezing. The atmosphere is so thin, that it would boil our blood from the smallest wound, and the air consists of deadly amounts of carbon dioxide. There is no life, there is no running water and there is no shelter to escape the Sun’s ultra- violet radiation that sterilizes everything left to the Red Planet’s surface. The whole planet is a large, dead desert. And yet, after Earth, it is the most hospitable place for humans in the Solar System! Mars, meaning the God of War, has two tiny moons, Phobos and Deimos. The Greek names mean fear and terror. This illustrates the planet well as a place for humans to go. And still we will go. Eventually, we will step our feet to the Red Planet. Because we must. But first come the robots! - The Author Image on the cover sheet: Bonneville crater, Gusev crater region, Mars. Image taken on 13th March 2004 by NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover ‘Spirit’. Image credit: NASA/JPL/Cornell. Abstract The search for possible extinct or existing life is the goal of the exobiology investigations to be undertaken during future Mars missions. As it has been learnt from the NASA Viking, Pathfinder and Mars Exploration Rover mission, sampling of surface soil and rocks can gain only limited scientific information. In fact, possible organic signatures tend to be erased by surface processes (weathering, oxidation and exposure to UV radiation from the Sun). The challenge of the missions have mostly been getting there; only roughly one third of all Mars missions have reached their goal, either an orbit around the planet, or landing to the surface. The two Viking landers in the 1970’s were the first to touch down the soil of Mars in working order and performing scientific studies there. After that there was a long gap, until 1997 the Pathfinder landed safely on the surface and released a little rover, the Sojourner. In 2004 other rovers came: the Mars Exploration Rover Spirit and a while after that, the sister rover Opportunity. These five successful landings are less than half of all attempts to land on Mars. Russia, Europe and the United States have all had their landers, but Mars is challenging. Even Mars orbit has been tough to reach by many nations’ orbiters. It is then understandable that of these five successful landings, performed by National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), there have not yet been very complicated mechanical deep-drilling instruments onboard. The risks to get there are great, and the risk of malfunctioning of a complicated instrument there is also high. Another reason to avoid a deep-driller from the lander payload is simply the mass constrains. A drill is a heavy piece of payload, and the mass allocations for scientific instruments are small. In the launch window of 2009, both European Space Agency (ESA) and NASA have their plans to send a rover to Mars. Both of them will include some means to analyse the subsurface material. ESA’s rover, called the ExoMars rover, will carry a deep-driller onboard in its Pasteur payload. At the time of writing this thesis, an exact definition of the Pasteur drill has not yet been defined. The author of this thesis has studied the driller instruments in his past work projects and in his doctoral studies. The main focus of this thesis is to analyse the feasibility of different drill configurations to fit to the requirements of the ExoMars’ Pasteur payload drill by using the information gathered from the past projects. In this thesis, the author introduces a new concept of a robotic driller, called the MASA drill. The MASA drill fulfils the needs for the drill instrument onboard the Pasteur payload. The main study in this thesis concentrates on design work of the MASA drill, as well as analysis of its operation and performance capabilities in the difficult task of drilling and sampling. Foreword I had the pleasure of joining the ESA-funded MRoSA2 “Mars rover” project in the beginning of 2001 as a systems engineer in my work place, Space Systems Finland Ltd. The work with the prototype Mars rover was much harder than I first thought: a real hands-on experience with mechanics, electronics and software. But it was fun! It was what I wanted to do, to put my hands inside the machine and try to make it work. Although I have been a real space-enthusiastic for whole my life, this was the point when I began thinking about Mars in-situ sampling and drilling problems. I am truly thankful for the good working atmosphere and enthusiasm to the original MRoSA2 rover mechanics team: Mr. Jari Saarinen and Dr. Jussi Suomela from HUT, and Mr. Petri Kaarmila from VTT. Many of the novel, even strange but working ideas popped up after a day of long work with the drill, dirtying our hands inside the ‘clockwork’ and desperately trying to find ways to make it work. The first project got continuation from ESA ESTEC in the form of MRoSA2 Upgrade project. This project was carried out in a relatively tight schedule during the fall 2002 and summer 2003. I was the project manager in this project. This was the time to make some ideas into reality. In the between of the first and second project, we gathered a lessons-learned memo of the drill system, and now we had a possibility to realize them to make the system even better. And we did, thanks to the HUT MRoSA2 Upgrade team of the work well done. In the spring 2003, ESA announced the Aurora Student Competition. The idea was to create a team, which would then study and document its work, which aimed to future space technologies. We took this opportunity in the HUT Automation Laboratory, where I was studying my minor in robotics. I had the pleasure of act as a team leader in this MIRANDA project, and I want to express my gratitude to the whole team: Mr. Aleksi Kivi, Mr. Seppo Heikkilä, Ms. Sini Merikallio and our advisor Mr. Tomi Ylikorpi. I am most grateful to Mr. Tomi Ylikorpi for the time and expertise that he has given to this thesis. Tomi was the original designer of the MRoSA2 drill when he still worked at the VTT, so it has been both useful and pleasure to work with him during the MRoSA2 and MIRANDA projects. In addition, he gave me valuable comments of my thesis’ manuscript during the time of writing this thesis. Professor Aarne Halme deserves my sincere gratitude of providing the laboratory for the late-night use of the test equipment throughout the original MIRANDA study as well as the second study, the MIRANDA-2. I want also thank the kind support of the HUT Automation laboratory staff, especially Mr. Tapio Leppänen and Mr. Kalle Rosenblad for their good work for the drill test bench. Professor Martti Hallikainen from the HUT Laboratory of Space Technology is acknowledged for his kind support and time for my thesis and for my Ph.D. studies, and I want also express my gratitude to the laboratory for sponsoring my thesis work and conferences. Like every enthusiastic kid, I also posed myriads of questions and information requests throughout the research and test period of my thesis work. I want to express my thanks to the kind support of information, which I got from the European Space Agency, especially from Mr. Gianfranco Visentin and Dr. Jorge Vago. I also want to acknowledge the NASA JPL Mars scientists, especially Dr. Nathan Bridges for his kind help throughout several fruitful e-mail discussions and touring me in the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, allowing me to meet some of JPL’s drilling experts. Professor Martti Lehtinen from Finnish Museum of Natural History deserves my sincere gratitude for giving me his time and effort for selecting and giving me the stones for the MIRANDA drilling tests and giving me interesting explanations of geological issues. I would also like to thank Mr. Dale Boucher (NORCAT) and Mr. Erick Dupuis (Canadian Space Agency), who kindly introduced me their drilling tests and gave me material to support this thesis. I want to thank my employer Space Systems Finland Ltd. for offering me the possibility to work in the highly interesting MRoSA2 project, which led me to study the Mars exploration. I am also greatful for my employer for sponsoring my trip to the Sixth Mars Conference in 2003 at Caltech, Pasadena.