A proposed comet nucleus penetrator for the comet rendezvous asteroid flyby mission

Review on research and development of planetary penetrator

“…Figure 3c shows the detailed design diagram of the CRAF momentum penetrator developed by NASA in 1986, and Figure 3d is the launch diagram of the CRAF. Since the researchers do not want the mother ship launching the penetrator to stay on the high‐speed impact orbit (the mother ship needs to have an evasive maneuver, which increases the technical cost), the penetrator needs to rely on its own rocket engine to accelerate forward (Adams et al, 1986; Evans et al, 1986; Manning, 1977; Stetson, 1988; Swenson et al, 1987). After that, each team continued to improve the CRAF penetrator.…”

Past and Future Comet Missions

“…Penetrator probes, which reach sub-surface layers of a planetary body by burying themselves in a high speed impact, rather than a gentle landing and then drilling, have been proposed for some time (Lorenz 2011). Although typically suggested as a solution for larger bodies such as the Moon or icy moons of the outer planets Gowen et al 2011), where gravity makes soft-landing far more challenging, they were studied in detail for comets as part of the NASA-led Comet Rendezvous Asteroid Flyby mission, which was cancelled in the early 1990s (Swenson et al 1987;Boynton and Reinert 1995). Penetrator probes rely on sufficiently robust instrumentation that can survive the sudden deceleration as the probe hits the ground, typically at ∼100 m s −1 , but can reveal physical structure of the surface by measuring this deceleration.…”