RESEARCH ON VERTICAL IMPACT OF SPACE LANDER FOOTPAD

摘要

The interaction between footpad and planetary soil is of great importance due to the strong impact produced during the brief period of the space lander touchdown, which will affect the normal operation of the lander inner precision instrument. In this paper, the vertical impact tests of the space lander footpad were performed using a self-designed test system on six different soils (four types of planetary simulant regolith, a kind of Gobi sand and normal dry quartz sand) under two different bulk density condition (natural and compact), with different impact heights (600, 800, 1000 mm) and footpad diameters (60, 80, 100, 120, 140 mm), and the impact depth, the peak acceleration of the footpad were collected. Experimental results are shown with figures and tables, and analyzed to evaluate the impact characteristic of the test soils. The effect of impact height and footpad diameter on impact depth and the peak acceleration are analyzed under different soil. The experimental results and conclusions are useful for optimizing footpad-soil impact interaction mechanics model.