Surface Instrument Package for Small Body Science
Abstract
A simple and inexpensive geophysics instrument package is being developed to enable unique science for small-body rendezvous missions. The instrument package consists of low-cost imagers, accelerometers to detect impact and seismic events, and a charge of high-energy explosive to perform cratering experiments. The system is housed in a spherical orientation-independent structure with all of the required support subsystems. Multiple copies of the instrument package would be deployed from orbit to the surface of a small solar system body, forming a temporary "net” of sensors that would probe fundamental unknowns associated with the strength, cohesion, porosity and compaction, and seismic wave transmission of the regolith. This poster will describe the science objectives, development of the prototype hardware, and results from recent full-scale explosive testing that were conducted to demonstrate the experiment concept.
- Publication:
-
AAS/Division for Planetary Sciences Meeting Abstracts #41
- Pub Date:
- December 2009
- Bibcode:
- 2009DPS....41.6817C