Barber, Simeon

Harkness, P.

Murray, N. J.

Sheridan, Simon

Timoney, R.

Worrall, K.

Open Research Online

Open Research OnlineThe Open University’s repository of research publicationsand other research outputsLunar Subsurface Exploration Technologies at theUniversity of Glasgow: capabilities and the ‘i-Drill’ casestudyConference or Workshop ItemHow to cite:Timoney, R.; Worrall, K.; Harkness, P.; Barber, Simeon; Sheridan, Simon and Murray, N. J. Lunar SubsurfaceExploration Technologies at the University of Glasgow: capabilities and the ‘i-Drill’ case study. In: European LunarSymposium (ELS) 2019, 21-23 May 2019, Manchester, United Kingdom.For guidance on citations see FAQs.c© [not recorded]https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/Version: Accepted ManuscriptLink(s) to article on publisher’s website:https://sservi.nasa.gov/articles/2019-european-lunar-symposium/Copyright and Moral Rights for the articles on this site are retained by the individual authors and/or other copyrightowners. For more information on Open Research Online’s data policy on reuse of materials please consult the policiespage.oro.open.ac.ukLunar Subsurface Exploration Technologies at the University of Glasgow: capabilities and the ‘i-Drill’ case study.  R. Timoney1, K. Worrall1, P. Harkness1, S. J. Barber2, S. Sheridan2 and N. Murray3. 1School of En-gineering, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK. G12 8QQ, r.timoney.1@research.gla.ac.uk  2School of Physical Sciences, The Open University, Milton Keynes, UK. MK7 6AA. 3Dynamic Imaging Analytics, Milton Keynes, UK. MK16 6GD.  Introduction:   A recent European focus on the exploration of the Moon, may provide the scientific community with opportunities to further understand our nearest neighbour, both in its own right and as an indicator of the rich history of our Solar System. Numerous missions are planned, starting with in-situ robotic exploration but envisaged to later involve sample return and new human sorties to the lunar vicinity.  Many missions will target previously unsampled high-latitude and/or Permanently Shadowed Regions (PSRs), in a quest to provide ground truth for orbital measurements that suggest elevated concentrations of water and other volatiles associated with these low-temperature environments. Such species are of high intrinsic scientific value; moreover the use of these materials as a potential feedstock within the emerg-ing field of in-situ resource utilisation (ISRU) addi-tionally makes them of particular interest to future mission planners. To this end, the authors propose technologies capable of the extraction and analysis of these volatiles, as candidate payload elements on these upcoming missions.    Drilling and Sampling Technologies: Ultrasonic Planetary Core Drill (UPCD) The University of Glasgow has experience in the development and testing of robotic planetary drilling and sampling systems which utilise a number of dif-ferent technologies. The Ultrasonic Planetary Core Drill (UPCD) project [1], funded by an EC FP7 grant, ran from 2014-2017 and saw a consortium of European partners develop a drilling and caching system, based upon the ultrasonic-percussive tech-nique, capable of autonomously extracting core sam-ples of still-frozen regolith simulant as depicted in Figure 1.   Figure 1: UPCD sampling dry (L) and saturated (R) Locharbriggs sandstone  This technology was tested at Coal Nunatak, Antarctica (73° S, 68° W) in December 2016 and proved to be a promising technology for use in po-tential Sample Return scenarios, capable of assem-bling, disassembling and caching in excess of three 10 mm core-containing drill bits, requiring 50 W of power on average to achieve this.  Percussive Rapid Access Isotope Drill (P-RAID) The technologies developed for the UPCD pro-ject proved to be an excellent baseline for the devel-opment of a new system, the Rapid Access Isotope Drill (P-RAID), in collaboration with the British Antarctic Survey [2]. This cam-hammer driven rota-ry-percussive mechanism (Figure 2) was developed in order to sample subglacial bedrock cores – a longstanding aim within the field of paleoclimatolo-gy. Making use of the planetary drilling approach, P-RAID offers a solution to the problem which has a substantially lower resource demand than conven-tional, industrial approaches.     Figure 2: P-RAID architecture (L) and core sam-ples of sandstone, limestone and microgabbro (R)  This technology has been tested in laboratory set-tings and also in a thermal vacuum chamber and has proven to be a robust means of obtaining samples of simulated planetary terrain, capturing cores with a diameter of 25 mm and as long as 300 mm. This can be achieved with as little as 70 W average power.  Ultrasonic Penetration of Granular Materials The application of ultrasonic vibration to classic penetrometry tends to reduce both the overhead force and power required to insert the device to the re-quired depths within granular terrain. Glasgow has developed a knowledge base in this area through a longstanding expertise in the development of ultra-sonic devices. Testing of these devices in settings such as the ESA ESTEC Large Diameter Centrifuge (LDC) suggests that they may be particularly suitable for use in low gravity environments [5]. Given that the reduced gravity found on the Moon may have a profound impact on the ability of lightweight landers and rovers to penetrate beneath the surface, ultrason-ic penetrometers may be particularly useful. Fur-thermore, the fluidisation of granular material by the action of ultrasonic vibration may provide a useful means of conveying material against the direction of the gravity vector while benefiting from a reduction in mechanical complexity when compared to conven-tion screw conveying/augering.  Ultrasonically Assisted Drilling (UAD) In a manner not dissimilar to the previously dis-cussed ultrasonic penetrometry, the application of ultrasonic vibration directly to a drill bit will reduce the weight on bit required to penetrate a target mate-rial [6]. While this technology has predominantly seen application in industrial-scale machining, testing at Glasgow suggests that it may be beneficial to ap-ply this technology to planetary exploration.  ‘i-Drill’ – an instrumented drill  i-Drill is an instrumented drill concept optimised to access the upper ~1 m of the lunar regolith. Thus i-Drill accesses both the surface layer that may ex-hibit signatures of transient surficial volatile en-hancement and/or of contamination from the host spacecraft, and the deeper subsurface probed by re-mote sensing observations such as neutron detectors.    The concept shares many of its objectives with the Luna-27 PROSPECT package [3], with regolith being sampled by a drill and volatiles being released by heating for analysis in a mass spectrometer. How-ever, whereas PROSPECT employs a complex, cor-ing drill and an intermediate sample receiving and manipulation device to seal the cored sample and release volatiles by heating, i-Drill removes the need for precise robotic manipulation. This is accom-plished by i-Drill employing a hollow drill-string, such that volatiles bound to the regolith are released through the drilling process and diffuse up the string for analysis in a (PROSPECT-type) ion trap mass spectrometer supplied by The Open University (OU). Further advantages accrue because the drill can be operated for maximum penetration performance, and the resultant heat generated is beneficial in enabling efficient release and transfer of evolved volatiles. This is in contrast to a coring drill, which must be operated carefully in order to minimise the genera-tion of heat at the bit that may introduce unwanted thermal alteration of the sample.  i-Drill also supports imaging of the sampled lunar regolith, enabling the volatiles profiles obtained to be interpreted in the wider geological context of the site. Imaging of the bottom of the borehole and of the cuttings is proposed and shall be achieved through the use of a dual camera suite of LUVMI heritage [4] and provided by Dynamic Imaging Analytics (DIA).  i-Drill was conceived at Glasgow, OU and DIA in response to a ESA RFI call on European payload contributions for future lunar missions. Harnessing knowledge gained through a rich heritage of technol-ogy development in their respective fields of subsur-face sampling, in-situ analysis tools and space imag-ing, i-Drill provides a low resource solution for lo-cating and extracting volatiles on future lightweight landed missions. Crucially, it occupies a ‘sweet-spot’ in the trade between payload mass/power require-ments and its capability in terms of accessing ~1 m sub-surface and performing crucial volatiles investi-gations supported by contextual imagery.  It is envis-aged that this package of drill integrated with power-ful and complementary mass spectrometer and im-agers shall form a mass- and power-efficient payload applicable to various near-term small lunar landers.  Figure 3: i-Drill Conceptual Schematic  References: [1] Worrall K. et al. (2017) ASTRA 2017. [2] Timo-ney R. et al (2018) AGU Fall 2018. [3] Trautner R. et al. (2018). IAC 2018. [4] Urbina D. et al. (2017) IAC 2017. [5] Firstbrook D. et al. (2017). Royal Soc. [6] Firstbrook D. et al. (2017) Springer. 

Lunar Subsurface Exploration Technologies at the University of Glasgow: capabilities and the ‘i-Drill’ case study

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Lunar Subsurface Exploration Technologies at the University of Glasgow: capabilities and the ‘i-Drill’ case study

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