To slip into the world of cliché, the thought of being involved in the Mars 2020 rover mission, part of NASA's Mars Exploration Program and a long-term robotic exploration of the Red Planet, would leave anyone ‘over the Moon’. After all, this is an undertaking that will tackle high-priority science goals and delve into the very possibility of the potential for life – and eventually human habitation – on Mars.
The historic Spacecraft Assembly Facility at the agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, will be where NASA’s engineers build the hardware for the Mars 2020 mission. And while the worlds of science and engineering are heavily engaged at the highest levels in delivering the technology that will underpin this assignment, there is still room for niche concerns to make a vital contribution.
One of those is Advanex, which has recently supplied COMAT Aerospace with Tangless CoilThread Inserts, to be used in the 2020 Mars Rover Supercam – a highly powerful camera (produced by COMAT Aerospace) that will be research information about the surface of Mars, such as elemental composition, and capture images. The Supercam contains up to 50 stainless steel Tangless inserts in a range of sizes from M2-M4.
As with many aerospace applications, it is important when selecting components that the materials are lightweight and can withstand harsh conditions. Tang break-off was a further consideration for the developers, as inserts were required in hard-to-reach places. By using CoilThread Tangless inserts, the developers had no tang break-off or subsequent risk of Foreign Object Debris (FOD), which helped to increase the speed of the installation process.
EXCITING NEW MARKET
Ian Beardsmore, managing director of Advanex Europe, has declared himself thrilled to be part of this project: “We are… confident in the ability of our CoilThread Tangless inserts. We know from our supply chain that our inserts can be found in various aircraft applications, such as landing gear, airframe and interiors. Space missions are a new and exciting market for us to develop!”
KATO CoilThread has been originated and developed by Advanex, and is manufactured and distributed across the globe via a network of distributors. It comes in either Tanged or Tangless versions, and is used in various sectors, including automotive, rail, defence, aerospace and medical device development.
Both the Tanged and Tangless threaded inserts are made from cold-rolled stainless steel wire (AS7245), work hardened to a tensile strength above 200,000 psi and a hardness of Rc 43-50. The finished surface is extremely smooth, which helps virtually to eliminate friction-induced thread erosion.
It’s robust, too. The stainless steel used to make KATO CoilThread can resist harsh environmental conditions and is suitable for many applications, while the insert itself can withstand temperatures from -320F to 800F (-195.6C to 426.7C). The entire range is available in five lengths, while materials embrace standard stainless steel, through to Nitronic, Inconel and Phosphor Bronze, as well as plating options, including Cadmium, Dry Film Lube and Silver.
It’s a solution that Marius Ferry, COMAT Aerospace project leader, acknowledges for the positives it delivers to the 2020 Mars Rover Supercam: “We are very happy with the Tangless inserts, because they save time and are much more quality efficient.”
MISSION POSSIBLE
To have its solutions involved in this remarkable project is a huge coup for Advanex Europe. The mission will not only be seeking signs of habitable conditions on Mars in the ancient past, but also searching for signs of past microbial life itself. Everywhere you look, technology will be hard at work to make this mission a success. For example, the Mars 2020 rover introduces a drill that can collect core samples of the most promising rocks and soils and set them aside in a ‘cache’ on the surface of Mars. A future mission could potentially return these samples to Earth. That would help scientists study the samples in laboratories with special room-sized equipment that would be too large to take to Mars.
The mission also provides opportunities to gather knowledge and demonstrate technologies that address the challenges of future human expeditions to Mars. These include testing a method for producing oxygen from the Martian atmosphere, identifying other resources (such as subsurface water), improving landing techniques, and characterising weather, dust, and other potential environmental conditions that could affect future astronauts living and working on Mars.
The mission is timed for a launch opportunity in July/August 2020 when Earth and Mars are in good positions relative to each other for landing on the Red Planet. That is, it takes less power to travel to Mars at this time, compared to other times when Earth and Mars are in different positions in their orbits. To keep mission costs and risks as low as possible, the Mars 2020 design is based on NASA's successful Mars Science Laboratory mission architecture, including its Curiosity rover and proven landing system.
SCIENCE OBJECTIVES
The Mars 2020 rover has four science objectives that support the programme's overall goals:
- Looking for Habitability: Identify past environments capable of supporting microbial life
- Seeking Biosignatures: Seek signs of possible past microbial life in those habitable environments, particularly in special rocks known to preserve signs of life over time
- Caching Samples: Collect core rock and ‘soil’ samples and store them on the Martian surface
- Preparing for Humans: Test oxygen production from the Martian atmosphere.
All relate to the potential of Mars as a place for life. The first three consider the possibility of past microbial life. Even if the rover does not discover any signs of past life, it paves the way for human life on Mars someday. The Mars 2020 rover also conducts other scientific studies related to its four objectives. For example, the rover monitors weather and dust in the Martian atmosphere. Such studies are important for understanding daily and seasonal changes on Mars, and will help future human explorers better predict Martian weather.
The Mars 2020 rover design is largely based on the engineering design for Mars rover Curiosity. This reliance on a proven system reduces mission costs and risks. The rover's long-range mobility system allows it to travel on the surface of Mars over a distance of 3 to 12 miles (5 to 20 kilometres). The rover has a new, more capable wheel design, among other improvements. For the first time, the rover carries a drill for coring samples from Martian rocks and soil. It gathers and stores the cores in tubes on the Martian surface, using a strategy called ‘depot caching’. Caching demonstrates a new rover capability of gathering, storing, and preserving samples. It could potentially pave the way for future missions that could collect the samples and return them to Earth for intensive laboratory analysis.
The Mars 2020 rover helps prepare for future human exploration of Mars with a technology for extracting oxygen from the Martian atmosphere, which is 96 percent carbon dioxide. This demonstration of new technology helps mission planners test ways of using Mars' natural resources to support human explorers and improve designs for life support, transportation, and other important systems for living and working on Mars.
LIFE AND SOUL
During the next two decades, NASA will conduct several missions to address whether life ever arose on Mars. The search begins with determining whether the Martian environment was ever suitable for life.
On Earth, all forms of life need water to survive. It is likely, though not certain, that, if life ever evolved on Mars, it did so in the presence of a long-standing supply of water. On Mars, therefore, the search will be on for evidence of life in areas where liquid water was once stable – and below the surface where it still might exist today. Perhaps there might also be some current ‘hot spots’ on Mars where hydrothermal pools (like those at Yellowstone) provide places for life.
Recent data from Mars Global Surveyor suggest that liquid water may exist just below the surface in rare places on the planet and the 2001 Mars Odyssey will be mapping subsurface water reservoirs on a global scale. It has been established that water ice is present at the Martian poles and these areas will be good places to search for evidence of life as well.
In addition to liquid water, life also needs energy. Therefore, future missions will also be on the lookout for energy sources other than sunlight, since life on the surface of Mars is unlikely, given the presence of ‘superoxides’ that break down organic (carbon-based) molecules on which life is based. Here on Earth, we find life in many places where sunlight never reaches – at dark ocean depths, inside rocks and deep below the surface. Chemical and geothermal energy, for example, are also energy sources used by life forms on Earth. Perhaps tiny, subsurface microbes on Mars could use such energy sources, too.
TELL-TALE MARKERS
NASA will also look for life on Mars by searching for tell-tale markers, or biosignatures, of current and past life. The element carbon, for instance, is a fundamental building block of life. Knowing where carbon is present and in what form would reveal a lot about where life might have developed.
We know that most of the current Martian atmosphere consists of carbon dioxide. If carbonate minerals were formed on the Martian surface by chemical reactions between water and the atmosphere, the presence of these minerals would be a clue that water had been present for a long time – perhaps long enough for life to have developed.
On Earth, fossils in sedimentary rock leave a record of past life. Based on studies of the fossil records, it is clear that only certain environments and types of deposits provide good places for fossil preservation. On Mars, searches are already underway to locate lakes or streams that may have left behind similar deposits.
So far, however, the kinds of biosignatures we know how to identify are those found on Earth. It's possible that life on another planet might be very different. The challenge is to be able to differentiate life from non-life, no matter where one finds it, no matter what its varying chemistry, structure and other characteristics might be. Life detection technologies under development will help to define life in non-Earth-centric terms, so that it can be detected in all the forms it might take.
CHARACTERISING THE CLIMATE
Past Martian climate conditions are a key focus of the Mars 2020 rover mission. The rover's instruments are looking for evidence of ancient habitable environments where microbial life could have existed in the past
Also, the Mars 2020 rover is designed to study the rock record to reveal more about the geologic processes that created and modified the Martian crust and surface through time. Each layer of rock on the Martian surface contains a record of the environment in which it was formed. The rover seeks evidence of rocks that formed in water and that preserve evidence of organics, the chemical building blocks of life
The Mars 2020 rover is demonstrating key technologies for using natural resources in the Martian environment for life support and fuel. It is also monitoring environmental conditions, so mission planners understand better how to protect future human explorers. This science goal relates to national space policy for sending humans to Mars in the 2030s. Similar to the history of the exploration of Earth's moon, robotic missions to Mars provide a crucial understanding of the environment and test innovative technologies for future human exploration.
Investments in Mars 2020 technologies include contributions from NASA's Human Exploration and Operations (HEO) Mission Directorate and Space Technology Program (STP) as part of NASA's long-term efforts to develop future capabilities for human space exploration.
It’s a vast and complex undertaking and for Advanex’s technology to be a small part of that is something of which the company is understandably very proud.
