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By Space Force
The Department of the Air Force released a memorandum, Jan. 22, directing the department to remove all outward facing media of DEIA offices.
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By European Space Agency
With ESA’s EarthCARE satellite and four measuring instruments all working extremely well and fully commissioned, the mission’s ‘first level’ data stream is now freely available.
By combining data from all four instruments, scientists ultimately aim to address a critical Earth science question: how do clouds and aerosols affect the heating and cooling of our atmosphere?
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By NASA
The NESC Mechanical Systems TDT provides broad support across NASA’s mission directorates. We are a diverse group representing a variety of sub-disciplines including bearings, gears, metrology, lubrication and tribology, mechanism design, analysis and testing, fastening systems, valve engineering, actuator engineering, pyrotechnics, mechatronics, and motor controls. In addition to providing technical support, the
TDT owns and maintains NASA-STD-5017, “Design and Development Requirements for Space Mechanisms.”
Mentoring the Next Generation
The NESC Mechanical Systems TDT actively participates in the Structures, Loads & Dynamics, Materials, and Mechanical Systems (SLAMS) Early Career Forum that mentors early-career engineers. The TDT sent three members to this year’s forum at WSTF, where early-career engineers networked with peers and NESC mentors, gave presentations on tasks they worked on at their home centers, and attended splinter sessions where they collaborated with mentors.
New NASA Valve Standard to Reduce Risk and Improve Design and Reliability
Valve issues have been encountered across NASA’s programs and continue to compromise mission performance and increase risk, in many cases because the valve hardware was not qualified in the environment as specified in NASA-STD-5017. To help address these issues, the Mechanical Systems TDT is developing a NASA standard for valves. The TDT assembled a team of subject matter experts from across the Agency representing several disciplines including mechanisms, propulsion, environmental control and life support systems, spacesuits, active thermal control systems, and materials and processes. The team has started their effort by reviewing lessons learned and best practices for valve design and hope to have a draft standard ready by the end of 2025.
Bearing Life Testing for Reaction Wheel Assemblies
The Mechanical Systems TDT just concluded a multiyear bearing life test on 40 motors, each containing a pair of all steel bearings of two different conformities or a pair of hybrid bearings containing silicon nitride balls. The testing confirmed that hybrid bearings outperformed their steel counterparts, and bearings with higher conformity (54%) outperformed bearings with lower conformity (52%). The team is disassembling and inspecting the bearings, and initial results have been surprising. The TDT was able to “recover” some of the bearings that failed during the life test and get them running as well as they did when testing began. Some bearings survived over five billion revolutions and appeared like new when they were disassembled and inspected. These results will be published once analysis is complete.
X-57 Design Assessment
The Mechanical Systems TDT was asked by the Aeronautics Mission Directorate to assess the design of the electric cruise motors installed on X-57. The team responded quickly to meet the Project’s schedule, making an onsite visit and attending numerous technical interchange meetings. After careful review of the design, the TDT identified areas for higher-level consideration and risk assessment and attended follow-on reviews to provide additional comments and advice.
CLARREO Pathfinder Inner Radial Bearing Anomaly
The Climate Absolute Radiance and Refractivity Observatory (CLARREO) Pathfinder was designed to take highly accurate measurements of reflected solar radiation to better-understand Earth’s climate. During payload functional testing, engineers detected a noise as the HySICS pointing system was rotated from its normal storage orientation. Mechanical Systems TDT members reviewed the design and inspection reports after disassembly of the inner bearing unit, noticing contact marks on the bore of the inner ring and the shaft that confirmed that the inner ring of the bearing was moving on the shaft with respect to the outer ring. Lubricant applied to this interface resolved the noise problem and allowed the project to maintain schedule without any additional costs.
JPL Wheel Drive Actuator Extended Life Test Independent Review Team
A consequence of changes to its mission on Mars will require the Perseverance Rover to travel farther than originally planned. Designed to drive 20 km, the rover will now need to drive ~91 km to rendezvous and support Mars sample tube transfer to the Sample Retrieval Lander. The wheel drive actuators with integral brakes had only been life tested to 40 km, so a review was scheduled to discuss an extended life test. The OCE Science Mission Directorate Chief Engineer assembled an independent review team (IRT) that included NESC Mechanical Systems TDT members. This IRT issued findings and guidance that questioned details of the JPL assumptions and plan. Several important recommendations were made that improved the life test plan and led to the identification of brake software issues that were reducing brake life. The life test has achieved 40 km of its 137 km goal and is ongoing. In addition, software updates were sent to the rover to improve brake life.
Orion Crew Module Hydrazine Valve
When an Orion crew module hydrazine valve failed to close, the production team asked the Mechanical Systems TDT for help. A TDT member attended two meetings and then visited the valve manufacturer, where it was determined this valve was a scaled-down version of the 12-inch SLS prevalve that was the subject of a previous NESC assessment and shared similar issues. The Orion Program requested NESC materials and mechanical systems support. The Mechanical Systems TDT member then worked closely with a Lockheed Martin (LM) Fellow for Mechanisms to review all the valve vendor’s detailed drawings and assembly procedures and document any issues. A follow-on meeting was held to brief both the LM and NASA Technical Fellows for Propulsion that a redesign and requalification was recommended. These recommendations have now been elevated to the LM Vice President for Mission Success and the LM Chief Engineer for Orion.
NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover selfie taken in July 2024.
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By NASA
5 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover used its right-front navigation camera to capture this first view over the rim of Jezero Crater on Dec. 10, 2024, the 1,354th Martian day, or sol, of the mission. The camera is facing west from a location nicknamed “Lookout Hill.”NASA/JPL-Caltech NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover captured this scene showing the slippery terrain that’s made its climb up to the rim of Jezero Crater challenging. Rover tracks can be seen trailing off into the distance, back toward the crater’s floor.NASA/JPL-Caltech The road ahead will be even more scientifically intriguing, and probably somewhat easier-going, now that the six-wheeler has completed its long climb to the top.
NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover has crested the top of Jezero Crater’s rim at a location the science team calls “Lookout Hill” and rolling toward its first science stop after the monthslong climb. The rover made the ascent in order to explore a region of Mars unlike anywhere it has investigated before.
Taking about 3½ months and ascending 1,640 vertical feet (500 vertical meters), the rover climbed 20% grades, making stops along the way for science observations. Perseverance’s science team shared some of their work and future plans at a media briefing held Thursday, Dec. 12, in Washington at the American Geophysical Union’s annual meeting, the country’s largest gathering of Earth and space scientists.
“During the Jezero Crater rim climb, our rover drivers have done an amazing job negotiating some of the toughest terrain we’ve encountered since landing,” said Steven Lee, deputy project manager for Perseverance at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “They developed innovative approaches to overcome these challenges — even tried driving backward to see if it would help — and the rover has come through it all like a champ. Perseverance is ‘go’ for everything the science team wants to throw at it during this next science campaign.”
A scan across a panorama captured by NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover shows the steepness of the terrain leading to the rim of Jezero Crater. The rover’s Mastcam-Z camera system took the images that make up this view on Dec. 5. NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS Since landing at Jezero in February 2021, Perseverance has completed four science campaigns: the “Crater Floor,” “Fan Front,” “Upper Fan,” and “Margin Unit.” The science team is calling Perseverance’s fifth campaign the “Northern Rim” because its route covers the northern part of the southwestern section of Jezero’s rim. Over the first year of the Northern Rim campaign, the rover is expected to visit as many as four sites of geologic interest, take several samples, and drive about 4 miles (6.4 kilometers).
“The Northern Rim campaign brings us completely new scientific riches as Perseverance roves into fundamentally new geology,” said Ken Farley, project scientist for Perseverance at Caltech in Pasadena. “It marks our transition from rocks that partially filled Jezero Crater when it was formed by a massive impact about 3.9 billion years ago to rocks from deep down inside Mars that were thrown upward to form the crater rim after impact.”
This animation shows the position of NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover as of Dec. 4, 2024, the 1,347th Martian day, or sol, of the mission, along with the proposed route of the mission’s fifth science campaign, dubbed Northern Rim, over the next several years. NASA/JPL-Caltech/ESA/University of Arizona “These rocks represent pieces of early Martian crust and are among the oldest rocks found anywhere in the solar system. Investigating them could help us understand what Mars — and our own planet — may have looked like in the beginning,” Farley added.
First Stop: ‘Witch Hazel Hill’
With Lookout Hill in its rearview mirror, Perseverance is headed to a scientifically significant rocky outcrop about 1,500 feet (450 meters) down the other side of the rim that the science team calls “Witch Hazel Hill.”
“The campaign starts off with a bang because Witch Hazel Hill represents over 330 feet of layered outcrop, where each layer is like a page in the book of Martian history. As we drive down the hill, we will be going back in time, investigating the ancient environments of Mars recorded in the crater rim,” said Candice Bedford, a Perseverance scientist from Purdue University in West Layfette, Indiana. “Then, after a steep descent, we take our first turns of the wheel away from the crater rim toward ‘Lac de Charmes,’ about 2 miles south.”
Lac de Charmes intrigues the science team because, being located on the plains beyond the rim, it is less likely to have been significantly affected by the formation of Jezero Crater.
After leaving Lac de Charmes, the rover will traverse about a mile (1.6 kilometers) back to the rim to investigate a stunning outcrop of large blocks known as megabreccia. These blocks may represent ancient bedrock broken up during the Isidis impact, a planet-altering event that likely excavated deep into the Martian crust as it created an impact basin some 745 miles (1,200 kilometers) wide, 3.9 billion years in the past.
More About Perseverance
A key objective of Perseverance’s mission on Mars is astrobiology, including caching samples that may contain signs of ancient microbial life. The rover will characterize the planet’s geology and past climate, to help pave the way for human exploration of the Red Planet and as the first mission to collect and cache Martian rock and regolith.
NASA’s Mars Sample Return Program, in cooperation with ESA (European Space Agency), is designed to send spacecraft to Mars to collect these sealed samples from the surface and return them to Earth for in-depth analysis.
The Mars 2020 Perseverance mission is part of NASA’s Moon to Mars exploration approach, which includes Artemis missions to the Moon that will help prepare for human exploration of the Red Planet.
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which is managed for the agency by Caltech, built and manages operations of the Perseverance rover.
For more about Perseverance:
https://science.nasa.gov/mission/mars-2020-perseverance
News Media Contacts
DC Agle
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-393-9011
agle@jpl.nasa.gov
Karen Fox / Molly Wasser
NASA Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600
karen.c.fox@nasa.gov / molly.l.wasser@nasa.gov
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Last Updated Dec 12, 2024 Related Terms
Perseverance (Rover) Astrobiology Jet Propulsion Laboratory Mars Mars 2020 Explore More
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