[X] My Assistant

[mars loon]

September 13, 2005:

Celebrate 600 Sols and get together if you're in the neighborhood by traveling to Princeton NJ for a lecture I have arranged by the RAT designer, Dr Stephen Gorevan, on Sep 13, 2005 at 8 PM.

All Forum Members and Friends are cordially invited to Stephen's lecture which is sponsored by The Amateur Astronomers Association of Princeton (NJ) at its monthly meeting. This free lecture is on the campus of Princeton University, in the lecture theatre of Peyton Hall on Ivy Lane.

For more info please check this topic :

http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?showtopic=1380

and this website:

http://www.princetonastronomy.org/

Stephen's outstanding mission contributions are highlighted in Steve Squyres new book:

"Roving Mars: Spirit, Opportunity and the Exploration of the Red Planet"

All forum members and friends are welcome to attend.

thanks,

Ken

Amateur Astronomers Association of Princeton (AAAP)
Program Chair
mailto:ken@princetonastronomy.org



PS: I'll be presenting a Mars rover lecture/display at the Franklin Institute Science Museum (Philadelphia, PA, USA) on Sat Oct 1 for their Astronomy Day event. My display will include some of the beautiful panoramas created by the extremely talanted forum members (with credit).

please check this website in a week or so after details are posted:
http://www.fi.edu/

[Airbag]

I attended this very interesting presentation by Dr. Gorevan. He spent some time talking about the various projects Honeybee Robotics is involved with, and then of course some background about the MER RAT and the tension-filled arrivals at Mars. Unfortunately, time was somewhat limited and I suspect both Dr. Gorevan and the audience would have had far more to discuss if time had permitted.

Some items that were new to me, and might be of interest to other forum members:

- Honeybee Robotics has worked on, and is still working on, drilling projects for various space-based applications ranging from the shallow hole RAT to 100km deep "inchworm" probes for e.g. icy moons. Their web site looks quite interesting too...

- They also work on all kinds of ultra-high precision actuators and even an electric motor suitable for unlimited operation at Venus temperature and pressure conditions.

- The "inchworm" deep drilling probe is being prototyped right now, and looks a like a 6-8ft long, 6" diameter torpedo. It would be RTG powered and make frequent up and down journeys in order to carry the cuttings back to the surface. For shallower (e.g. Mars) applications it could be powered via a cable.

- The sampler/corer for MSL has a bit change-out capability (!); Honeybee is also responsible for MSL's extensive sample manipulation and processing system.

- The RAT is much smaller than I had expected; it easily fits in your hand (see image below of an early prototype and sample drilled hole that Dr. Gorevan brought along). The cutting surfaces are only about the size of a match head each. Note this prototype does not have the outside brush; that was added later as it was found that the inside brush alone was not sufficient to remove the cuttings.

- The presenter showed pictures put together by some of this forum's members prior to introducing Dr. Gorevan (with credits, of course). Dr. Gorevan had not seen a RAT rotation movie yet and seemed impressed with jvandriel's neat animation!

Finally, I have also attached a picture of one of the slides (I asked if it was OK to take pictures first) that shows just how far removed the final RAT is from its original concept. Honeybee did all this with pretty much no specifications from NASA!

Airbag

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