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Italian researchers have successfully tested a vented, or dead-beat, airbag technology that could be used to cushion a rover during landing on Mars.
London, June 11 : Italian researchers have successfully tested a vented, or dead-beat, airbag technology that could be used to cushion a rover during landing on Mars.
An effective entry, descent and landing system is being considered critical to the success of the European Space Agency's (ESA's) ExoMars mission.
NASA rovers - Spirit and Opportunity - and their landing platforms were encased in billiard-ball-like arrangements of gasbags to protect the vehicles at the moment of impact with the Martian surface.
According to Vincenzo Giorgio, Thales Alenia Space, these bags bounced more than 25 times and travelled some 200 metres across the dusty surface before bringing their precious cargoes to a safe and secure stop.
However, Europe is looking to an alternative technology to land ExoMars, which would see the rover and platform come down atop a system of squashable bags.
On landing, sensors would send a signal to open vents in these bags, causing a rapid but predictable deflation.
Italian Aerospace Research Centre (Centro Italiano Ricerche Aerospaziali) scientists, who designed and tested this air bag, have said it would be more accurate than the NASA system, and bring the rover-platform to an immediate stop in an upright orientation.
The European Space Agency (ESA) has now asked member states to approve an enhanced design concept for the ExoMars project.
According to the BBC, the ExoMars design team is now currently looking at a rover concept that is bigger than the 650m-euro "baseline" version approved by ministers in 2005.
ESA scientists have said the vented bags would release the rover's designers from the very tight volume constraints that come with enveloping bouncing bags, and allow for a larger, heavier payload.
The enhanced rover would be slightly heavier than 200kg (the American vehicles weigh about 180kg). It would have a 16.5kg instrument package, together with a drill or "mole" for burrowing beneath the Martian soil.
Its greater mass means it would need to be launched on a heavy-lift rocket like an Ariane 5 or Proton, rather than the smaller Soyuz as originally envisaged, said an ESA scientist.
ANI
