Extra-Terrestrial Subsurface Sampling Device

At the beginning of the Fall-2016 semester, NASA issued an invitation for engineering teams to participate in the 2017-Micro-g NExT challenge, an undergraduate research and development opportunity that focuses on future asteroid sample collection technology. The Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University Prescott team, Massive Aerospace Dynamics, elected to create a subsurface sampling device for the challenge. Massive Aerospace Dynamics will be constructing an Extra-Terrestrial Subsurface Sampling Device; a device that is intended to engage future space crews in the methodology of prospecting an asteroid/celestial body. The purpose of the device is to allow the space crew members to view the body’s composition, the body’s physical characteristics, and develop a greater understanding of the structure of the universe. Due to the unique environment of drilling in space, the challenge is hosted at NASA’s Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory, an aquatic simulated micro gravity environment, in Houston, Texas. Massive Aerospace Dynamics is expected to be able to obtain a one-inch diameter, eight-inch cylindrical sample from three different bins containing various rocks and regolith. The Extra-Terrestrial Subsurface Sampling Device shall also allow the user to view the stratigraphy collected upon drilling into the bins, as well as allow the user to minimize any possibility of cross contaminating the samples extracted from the bins. Some of the build parameters of the Extra-Terrestrial Subsurface Sampling Device include a dry weight limit of 15 pounds, an ambidextrous design, chlorine water tolerance, and a size/volume constraint of 8” x 8” x 18”.Eagle Prize Award