Coring Rocks On Mars |
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A Rock Abrasion Tool (RAT) that was part of the 2003 Mars Exploration Rover Mission is still operating on Mars today. The next mission, the 2009 Mars Science Laboratory (MSL), calls not only for a RAT, but also for a separate rock coring tool. To meet this demand, the company that produced the RAT, Honeybee Robotics Spacecraft and Mechanisms Design, has also developed a Mini-Corer. The Mini-Corer comes in a shoe-box sized enclosure. This outer box seals the interior from dust. It also acts as a very rigid structural housing. Inside of this box is a smaller box-it is a little larger than a man's fist. These boxes double-seal the Mini-Corer to prevent dust from getting into the gears and bearings. The small box can slide up and down inside the big box on two linear bearings. When the Mini-Corer drills into rock, the big box doesn't move at all. But, the little box can move about six inches or so with a coring bit that is five centimeters (approximately one inch) long and eight millimeters in diameter, as it is guided in linear fashion on two NB Corporation SMS10WUU double-wide linear bearings on shafts. Honeybee wanted to make the Mini-Corer lighter and stiffer. They chose the a double-wide linear bearing because it provided more stiffness and more rigidity than they could achieve with two standard width bushings. "NB makes the only bushings that are available
double-wide and double-wide with flange," the company said. They have a variety
of flanges - round, square or two side cut. The double-wide bushings are offered
in a range of shaft diameters from .125 - 2 inches (3.175mm - 50.8mm). NB also
offers an extensive line of standard width bushings that come in lengths from .5
- 8 inches or 12.7mm - 203.2mm. |
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Mike Maksymuk, a systems engineer at Honeybee said, "This robot is a coring tool to core rock and to take sample cores out of rock. In order to do that, we wanted to have a stable linear slide. The forces and torques that the two NB Corporation double-wide linear bearings can handle were enough that we didn't need to look further. That's because, being a double linear slide, it gives us more distributed load. Imagine coming down on a rock with your drill moving forward without cutting rock perpendicular to its surface. That's going to put a lot of side loads back into the tool. We needed something really rigid to prevent the tool from flexing." For more information contact: Larry Hansen NB Corporation of America 939 A.E.C. Drive Wood Dale, IL 60191 800-521-2045 Fax: 630-227-1118 E-mail: info@nbcorporation.com
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