CEPSAR’s Dr Simon Sheridan has been developing rugged mass spectrometer for deployment by high speed penetrators. Penetrators may one day allow access to surface and sub-surface material on planetary, moons and other small bodies without the need for complex soft landers or drilling systems. A series of small-scale impact tests have just been completed, under an ESA programme and in collaboration with the Mullard Space Science Laboratory and Astrium Ltd, to investigate the use of penetrator deployed instruments for future ESA missions to Europa.
The Open University impact tolerant mass spectrometer design, which is a development of the Ptolemy mass spectrometer currently on-board the Rosetta spacecraft was impacted into water ice targets at velocities of 300 ms-1, during tests which were carried out at the High-Speed impact facility at the University of Cambridge Cavendish Labs. The mass spectrometer survived the impacts and will now be subjected to further tests during the summer in a full-scale rocket based test at the QinetiQ high-speed missile test facility in Pendine.
Images show the mass spectrometer loaded into a penetrator shell and assembled penetrator shells.
2 July 2013