An Overview of the Mars Science Laboratory Sample Acquisition, Sample Processing, and Handling Subsystem

Jandura, Louise; Burke, Kevin; Kennedy, Brett; Melko, Joseph; Okon, Avi; Sunshine, D.

doi:10.1061/41096(366)89

Cited by 11 publications

(6 citation statements)

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“…Field geologists frequently discard the surface portions of their collected natural samples because coatings and rinds obscure the fresh rock composition. This practice will not be an option on Mars; unlike previous rovers, MSL will not have a tool for abrading rock surfaces to obtain a fresh surface for analysis, though it will carry a brush to remove unconsolidated dust coatings and a drill to retrieve powders from the interiors of rocks [22]. Both rock coatings and rinds have been observed in situ on the martian surface [23][24][25], and so these materials are expected to be encountered with MSL.…”

Section: Interpreting Chemcam Libs Measurements Of Rock Surfaces On Marsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Examining natural rock varnish and weathering rinds with laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy for application to ChemCam on Mars

et al. 2012

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A laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) instrument is traveling to Mars as part of ChemCam on the Mars Science Laboratory rover. Martian rocks have weathered exteriors that obscure their bulk compositions. We examine weathered rocks with LIBS in a martian atmosphere to improve interpretations of ChemCam rock analyses on Mars. Profile data are analyzed using principal component analysis, and coatings and rinds are examined using scanning electron microscopy and electron probe microanalysis. Our results show that LIBS is sensitive to minor compositional changes with depth and correctly identifies rock type even if the series of laser pulses does not penetrate to unweathered material.

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Section: Interpreting Chemcam Libs Measurements Of Rock Surfaces On Marsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Examining natural rock varnish and weathering rinds with laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy for application to ChemCam on Mars

et al. 2012

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“…Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) Curiosity rover has two major instruments (SAM- Mahaffy et al, 2012, CheMin-Blake et al, 2012 that required the ingestion of rock powder samples from the sample acquisition system (Jandura et al, 2010). Both of these instruments have funnels which incorporated vibrators to fluidize the sample received from the acquisition system and allow for delivery to the instrument test cells.…”

Section: Examples Of Acoustic Processing Of Samples Chemin Powder Flu...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Acoustic Processing of Fluidic Samples for Planetary Exploration

Sherrit¹,

Bădescu²,

Noell³

et al. 2022

Front. Space Technol.

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The search for life on other planetary bodies is driven by our quest to determine if Earth is unique with respect to harboring life. In order to answer this question, instrumentation with suitable sensitivity is required to measure biosignatures. In addition to accurate measurements by in-situ instruments, specialized sample acquisition and sample handling hardware is required to maximize the scientific information obtained from an acquired sample. This paper discusses a class of compact sample processing instrumentation using solid-state mechanisms that use acoustic waves to process samples prior to delivery to the instrument. Some of the acoustic sample processes that can be used to aid in preparation of liquid and liquid/solid mixtures include: mixing, milling, cavitating, lysing, heating, streaming, stirring, lofting, concentrating, segregating, and filtering. We will review these acoustic processes and show how they are generated using electromechanical systems. In addition to processing, these transduction systems could also use acoustics to interrogate physical properties such as the state of the sample, the acoustic velocity, and its attenuation. In order to generate these processes and sensing capabilities at these frequencies, a transduction mechanism is required to produce stress waves from electrical signals and vice versa. One commonly used technique is to use piezoelectric transducers that generate a stress that is linearly proportional to the voltage across the transducer and a voltage that is proportional to the stress on a transducer’s face. A variety of transducer modes are available to excite the sample, including thickness, transverse, radial, and shear extensional, and these can be used to build composite resonance structures including ultrasonic horns, tuning forks, bimorph, and unimorph benders to increase stress generated in the sample. We discuss how to model the acoustic interactions with the sample and the sample chamber in order to produce the required stress waves and illustrate the use of network models of piezoelectric transducers to accomplish this modeling. We demonstrate how to build up these models using Mason’s equivalent circuit for a piezoelectric and network models for acoustic layers in a design. Finally, to illustrate this acoustic processing ability, we will discuss a few systems that we have developed for sample handling systems for other planetary bodies like Mars and ocean worlds Enceladus and Europa.

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“…The remaining 16 actuators are located inside the Sample Acquisition -Sample Processing and Handling (SA-SPaH) subsystem. [6][7] The SA-SPaH subsystem is tasked with collecting rock and soil samples with a scoop and a percussive Drill, pulverizing the samples, sieving them into particles of the proper size and delivering them to the analytical laboratory instruments (SAM & CheMin) located inside the rover. The largest element of SA-SPaH is the 5 degree-of-freedom Robotic Arm (RA).…”

Section: B Msl Actuatorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mars Science Laboratory Rover Actuator Thermal Design

Novak

Liu

Lee

et al. 2010

40th International Conference on Environmental Systems

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NASA will launch a 950 kg rover, part of the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) mission, to Mars in October of 2011. The MSL rover is scheduled to land on Mars in August of 2012. The rover employs 31 electric-motor driven rotary actuators to perform a variety of engineering and science functions including: mobility, camera pointing, telecommunications antenna steering, soil and rock sample acquisition and sample processing. This paper describes the MSL rover actuator thermal design. The actuators have stainless steel housings and planetary gearboxes that are lubricated with a "wet" lubricant. The lubricant viscosity increases with decreasing temperature. Warm-up heaters are required to bring the actuators up to temperature (above-55ºC) prior to use in the cold wintertime environment of Mars (when ambient atmosphere temperatures are as cold as-113ºC). Analytical thermal models of all 31 MSL actuators have been developed. The actuators have been analyzed and warm-up heaters have been designed to improve actuator performance in cold environments. Thermal hardware for the actuators has been specified, procured and installed. This paper presents actuator thermal analysis predicts, and describes the actuator thermal hardware and its operation. In addition, warm-up heater testing and thermal model correlation efforts for the Remote Sensing Mast (RSM) elevation actuator are discussed.

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An Overview of the Mars Science Laboratory Sample Acquisition, Sample Processing, and Handling Subsystem

Cited by 11 publications

References 0 publications

Examining natural rock varnish and weathering rinds with laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy for application to ChemCam on Mars

Examining natural rock varnish and weathering rinds with laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy for application to ChemCam on Mars

Acoustic Processing of Fluidic Samples for Planetary Exploration

Mars Science Laboratory Rover Actuator Thermal Design

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