On the Reliability of the Functioning of the Deploying Landing Module Mechanisms

Abstract

The development of mechanisms for deploying, fixing nodes and systems of interplanetary automatic spacecraft landing modules is the most difficult engineering task, errors in its solution lead to critical or fatal failures. The fact that interplanetary missions are rare and the implementation of each of them is very expensive leads to the need for practically trouble-free operation of deploying mechanisms, which in turn requires improving the efficiency of design techniques and computational and experimental reliability assurance in the face of limited statistical data and incomplete knowledge of the conditions and effects of planets on interplanetary spacecraft. In contrast to foreign experience, in domestic practice insufficient attention is payed to the methodology for designing highly reliable opening and fixation mechanisms. The article considers approaches to the computational and experimental reliability assurance of the functioning the mechanisms for deploying landing modules. The factors having a decisive effect on the reliability of the deploying and fixation mechanisms are analyzed. It is shown that the reliability of the functioning the deploying and fixation mechanisms largely determines the reserves of driving moments (forces) of the deploying drives, taking into account design and technological factors, and for the landing module mechanisms, they should be calculated based on the conditions and effects of the destination planets (climatic, atmospheric and gravitational)