Geotechnical Data Determination from Space Penetrators and Sampling Devices and its Usefulness for Planetary Body Exploration
- Paper number
IAC-11,A3,2.P,27,x11978
- Author
Dr. Karol Seweryn, Space Research Center PAS, Poland
- Coauthor
Mr. Jerzy Grygorczuk, Polish Academy of Sciences - Space Research Centre, Poland
- Year
2011
- Abstract
During the last decade a number of scientific space missions developed by space agencies were dedicated for in situ investigations of space bodies. Most of them operate on the Mars surface – for example rovers Spirit and Opportunity built by NASA, but a few will operate on different small space bodies – Philae lander on the 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko comet (ESA) or Phobos Grunt mission (ROSKOSMOS). In most of them space instruments for subsurface investigations were used in order to get more information about the nature of subsurface materials, physical phenomena occurring under the surface, and thermal and mechanical regolith parameters. The scientific data that will be obtained as a result of ongoing and future space instruments: MUPUS (Rosetta mission), CHOMIK (Phobos Grunt mission), moles (e.g. mole KRET) should help to better understand surface and subsurface constraints for space civil engineering. All this data, together with records from the past Apollo missions, should be used to identify the ’geotechnical’ parameters of space bodies, and as a result create the opportunity to formulate common civil engineering standards useful for building the International Lunar Base. Basic details of the MUPUS, CHOMIK and mole KRET instruments developed in SRC PAS are provided below. One of the most important goals of the Phobos-Grunt mission is to collect a soil sample from Phobos and deliver it to Earth. The sample will be collected from the surface of the satellite by the CHOMIK penetrator and deposited in a container that is going to land in 2014 in Kazakhstan encased in the Russian re-entry capsule. Apart from sampling, CHOMIK will perform thermal and mechanical measurements of Phobos’ regolith. KRET (Polish for ‘mole’) is a penetrator with high energetic strokes. During the summer and autumn of 2010, the successful tests were performed in a 5-meter test-bed filled with quartz sand as well as lunar regolith analogue AGK-2010. AGK-2010 is a new analogue of the Moon’s regolith and it is based on the particle size distribution of CHENOBI lunar highlands physical regolith simulant and has the same mechanical properties. A vertical 5-meter test-bed system and 2-meter test-bed system with variable inclination will also be presented in the paper.
- Abstract document
- Manuscript document
(absent)