Designing spacecraft mechanisms for sand, dust, water and frost

摘要

This paper discusses the design trades and lessons learned in the development of a mechanisms package for the Mars Environmental Compatibility Assessment (MECA) Wet Chemistry Laboratory (WCL), an experiment on the Mars 2001 Surveyor Lander. The WCL performs in-situ wet chemistry experiments on samples of Martian soil. Designing mechanisms to handle Martian soil along with water and frost posed challenges that are somewhat unique and foreign to the spacecraft mechanisms industry. Lessons learned in the development, manufacturing and testing of the various components including the water storage vessel, soil and reagent delivery mechanisms, stirring mechanism, seals actuators, clearances, and packaging of these mechanisms are discussed.