MicroDrill Sample Acquisition System for Small Class Exploration Spacecrafts

The paradigm for space exploration is changing. Large and expensive missions are very rare and the space community is turning to smaller, lighter, and less expensive missions that could still perform great exploration. These missions are also within reach of commercial companies such as the Google Lunar X Prize teams that develop small scale lunar missions. Recent commercial endeavors such as “Planet Labs inc.” and Sky Box Imaging, inc. show that there are new benefits and business models associated with miniaturization of space hardware. The MicroDrill is part of the ongoing effort to develop “Micro Sampling” systems for deployment by these small spacecrafts with limited payload capacities. The ideal applications include prospecting missions to the Moon and Asteroids. This paper describes development and testing of the “MicroDrill” system. The MicroDrill is a rotary-percussive coring drill that captures cores 7 mm in diameter and up to 2 cm long. The drill weighs approximately 1 kg and can capture a core from a 40 MPa strength rock within a few minutes, with less than 10 Watt power and less than 10 Newton of preload.