Bio-Inspired Landing and Attachment System for Miniaturised Surface Modules
- Paper number
IAC-07-C2.8.01
- Author
Dr. Claudio Bombardelli, Advanced Concepts Team, The Netherlands
- Coauthor
Mr. Michael Broshart, European Space Agency (ESA)/ESTEC, The Netherlands
- Coauthor
Prof. Carlo Menon, Simon Fraser University, Canada
- Year
2007
- Abstract
Future space science missions aimed at characterising the geophysical properties of asteroids and comets could benefit from employing a number of miniaturised surface modules distributed at different locations of the celestial body and performing collaborative measurements. One of the technical challenges of such an approach is represented by the need of landing and securely attaching the modules to a prescribed spot on the surface of the body. In the case of small asteroids, for example, the centrifugal acceleration on the surface may considerably reduce or even exceed local gravity thus complicating the landing and attachment phase and requiring sophisticated and mass-costly sensors and actuators. On the other hand, the typically strict mass budget of miniaturised lander modules calls for simpler and lighter solutions. This study proposes a novel biologically inspired concept to land and firmly attach swarms of miniaturised satellites or probes to the surface of low gravity objects. The biomimetic inspiring principle comes from the locomotive capabilities of arthropods and geckos that owing to their peculiarly evolved hairy attachment systems aptly move with high efficiency over all kinds of surfaces, almost independent of external conditions. Gecko attachment mechanisms are nanoscopically well identified and have been synthetically prototyped. Taking advantage of the knowledge gained so far, we propose a similar solution to reliably attach an element with non-negligible incoming relative velocity to a surface. In the present concept microprobes are shot or dropped from a hovering or orbiting satellite to the target body to which they autonomously remain attached by dry adhesion. Based on previous experimental results on gecko foot-hairs and gecko-like robotic hardware on Earth, we investigate contact dynamics and surface interaction for different impact velocities and surface conditions. Conclusions for a preliminary design of the proposed attachment system are drawn showing its suitability of delivering low-mass surface modules on different typologies of asteroids with high payload mass fraction.
- Abstract document
- Manuscript document
IAC-07-C2.8.01.pdf (🔒 authorized access only).
To get the manuscript, please contact IAF Secretariat.