An illustration of SHIELD, a Mars lander concept that would allow lower-cost missions to reach the Red Planets surface by safely crash landing, utilizing a retractable base to take in the effect. Credit: California Academy of Sciences
The speculative SHIELD lander is developed to take in a tough impact like a vehicles crumple zone.
NASA has effectively landed spacecraft on Mars 9 times, using cutting-edge parachutes, enormous airbags, and jetpacks to securely touch down on the surface area. Now engineers are investigating whether crashing is the easiest way to get to the Martian surface area.
Rather than slow a spacecrafts high-speed descent prior to touching down, a speculative lander design called SHIELD (Simplified High Impact Energy Landing Device) would utilize an accordion-like, collapsible base that acts like the crumple zone of a car and takes in the energy of a tough impact.
Much of SHIELDs design is heavily affected by work done for NASAs Mars Sample Return campaign. “And if we can do a hard landing on Mars, we understand SHIELD could work on worlds or moons with denser atmospheres.”
To evaluate whether the theory might in fact work in practice, engineers needed to prove SHIELD can secure sensitive electronics throughout landing. The team utilized a drop tower standing almost 90 feet (27 meters) at JPL to evaluate how Perseverances sample tubes would hold up in a hard Earth landing. It includes a huge sling– called a bow launch system– that can hurl a things into the surface area at the very same speeds reached during a Mars landing.
By simplifying the harrowing entry, descent, and landing procedure, the new design might dramatically decrease the cost of landing on Mars. It could likewise expand choices for possible landing websites.
SHIELD is a Mars lander principle that might allow lower-cost objectives to check out the Martian surface area by utilizing an impact-absorbing, collapsible base to securely crash land. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
” We believe we could go to more treacherous locations, where we wouldnt wish to risk attempting to position a billion-dollar rover with our current landing systems,” stated SHIELDs task supervisor, Lou Giersch of NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “Maybe we could even land several of these at different difficult-to-access areas to build a network.”
Cars And Truck Crashes, Mars Landings
Much of SHIELDs style is heavily affected by work done for NASAs Mars Sample Return campaign. The initial step because project involves the Perseverance rover gathering rock samples in airtight metal tubes. In the future, a spacecraft will carry those Martian samples back to Earth in a small pill and safely crash land in a deserted location.
Studying methods for that procedure led engineers to wonder if the general idea was reversible, stated Velibor Cormarkovic, SHIELD employee at JPL.
” If you wish to land something hard in the world, why cant you do it the other way around for Mars?” he said. “And if we can do a tough landing on Mars, we understand SHIELD could deal with worlds or moons with denser environments.”
This model base for SHIELD– a collapsible Mars lander that would enable a spacecraft to purposefully crash arrive on the Red Planet, soaking up the effect– was tested in a drop tower at JPL on Aug. 12 to replicate the impact it would encounter landing on Mars. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
To test whether the theory might in fact work in practice, engineers required to show SHIELD can safeguard sensitive electronic devices during landing. The group utilized a drop tower standing almost 90 feet (27 meters) at JPL to test how Perseverances sample tubes would hold up in a hard Earth landing. It includes a huge sling– called a bow launch system– that can hurl an item into the surface at the exact same speeds reached throughout a Mars landing.
Cormarkovic formerly worked for the vehicle market, screening cars and trucks that carried crash dummies. In some of those tests, the cars ride on sleds that are accelerated to high speeds and crashed into a wall or deformable barrier. There are a variety of methods to accelerate the sleds, including utilizing a sling similar to the bow launch system.
” The tests weve done for SHIELD are sort of like a vertical variation of the sled tests,” Cormarkovic said. “But rather of a wall, the abrupt stop is due to an impact into the ground.”
Smashing Success
On August 12, the group gathered at the drop tower with a full-size model of SHIELDs collapsible attenuator– an inverted pyramid of metal rings that soak up impact. They hung the attenuator on a grapple and inserted a mobile phone, a radio, and an accelerometer to mimic the electronics a spacecraft would bring.
Sweating in the summertime heat, they saw SHIELD slowly rise to the top of the tower.
This drop tower at JPL includes a bow launch system, which can toss test short articles 110 miles per hour into the ground, re-creating the forces they would experience throughout a Mars landing. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
” Hearing the countdown provided me goosebumps,” said Nathan Barba, another SHIELD job member at JPL. “The entire team was delighted to see if the objects inside the prototype would make it through the impact.”
In simply 2 seconds, the wait was over: The bow launcher knocked SHIELD into the ground at roughly 110 miles per hour (177 kilometers per hour). Thats the speed a Mars lander reaches near the surface area after being slowed by atmospheric drag from its preliminary speed of 14,500 miles per hour (23,335 kilometers per hour) when it gets in the Mars environment.
Previous SHIELD tests utilized a dirt “landing zone,” however for this test, the group laid a steel plate 2 inches (5 centimeters) thick on the ground to create a landing harder than a spacecraft would experience on Mars. The onboard accelerometer later on exposed SHIELD impacted with a force of about 1 million newtons– comparable to 112 tons smashing versus it.
High-speed camera video footage of the test reveals that SHIELD affected at a slight angle, then bounced about 3.5 feet (1 meter) into the air before flipping over. The team suspects the steel plate triggered the bounce, given that no bounce occurred in the earlier tests.
Upon opening the model and retrieving the simulated electronic payload, the team discovered the onboard devices– even the smart device– endured.
” The only hardware that was damaged were some plastic parts we werent stressed over,” Giersch stated. “Overall, this test was a success!”
The next action? Creating the rest of a lander in 2023 and seeing just how far their concept can go.