How Do Missions Get Formed? (Live Public Talk)

NASA's jet propulsion laboratory presents the Von Carmen lecture a series of Talks by scientists and Engineers who are exploring our planet our solar system and all that lies Beyond [Music] hello everybody and a very pleasant good evening to you wherever you may be my name is Brian White from jpl's Office of communications and education and welcome to the first Von Carmen Talk of the 2023 series it has been a pleasure and an honor to bring these talks to you monthly and tonight we'll get a chance to talk with one of our incredible robotics engineers at JPL discussing the process of generating ideas from napkin sketch to prototype to development and testing now before we go any further I'd like to introduce our questions co-host for this evening it's from the Mars public engagement team please welcome Lindsey McLaurin hi Lindsay hello Brian and welcome everyone as a reminder this is your space program and we want you to be involved in tonight's conversation so from wherever you're joining us please use the chat feature to ask questions and a member of our amazing social media team will pass them along to us if for some reason you don't see the chat simply refresh your browser and it should pop up shortly let's get started Brian thank you very much Lindsay all right folks our speaker tonight is in the robotic system group here at NASA JPL working in mechanical design Machine Vision systems engineering system architecting and planetary sample collection he is currently the co-investigator for the Mars return sample handling technology development task which is a mouthful as well as the product delivery manager of the robotic transfer assembly system for the Mars sample return capture containment and return system which we'll talk about this evening he is actively involved in education worldwide and has taught space exploration in Swahili at an orphanage in Tanzania lectured on astronomy to children in Costa Rica Honduras India Japan Holland Spain Morocco and Australia and organized interactive robotics activities for planetariums in Malaysia and South Korea he is truly one of our JPL Underachievers with all of this in his free time he enjoys Excavating dinosaur fossils running marathons salsa dancing and scuba diving please welcome Paolo yountz hi hi hey thanks for that great intro Brian thank you no thanks for all that you do but let's start off because that's such a great there's so much that we could talk about let's talk about your journey how did you get to JPL I actually got involved in science at a very very early age my dad was a geologist so before I had any comic book collections or video games or baseball cards I actually had a rock collection when I was a kid um I I still remember the first time uh I brought a show and tell item in the kindergarten it was a halite crystal which it's common table salt but it was the coolest thing for myself and all the kids because it was the rock that you could taste and I don't know how many geologists out there still lick rocks when they go out into the field um but at the end of the day we had 28 little kids in kindergarten that were aspiring geologists so um with salty tongues I wouldn't recommend doing that now but uh you know it was a great way to get involved in science early on um later on a couple years later I got my first telescope and I still remember going out into the backyard at night and pointing that telescope up into the sky and actually seen Mars for the first time with my eyes and that's changed my perspective on Mars Mars wasn't just a uh a picture in a textbook but it was something that actually I actually I could see and explore with my own eyes and it wasn't too long after that that NASA started launching and Landing Rovers on the surface of Mars exploring Mars um sampling rocks and uh learning about you know the science and history of Mars and that's kind of what inspired me to want to pursue the career of an engineer to build these Rovers for the first time eventually take samples of rocks on Mars and bring them back home Adam to our own very own rock collection here on Earth and so that's kind of what motivated me to get a degree in mechanical engineering from Cal Poly did a master's degree in computer vision vehicle navigation and control from the University of Florida and then more recently pursue a PhD in systems engineering from Colorado State University so now I'm in the robotic systems group where I get a chance to every day help develop new technologies that are going to enable this future missions to explore our solar system that's incredible um that's that's one big Journey from from table salt to what you're doing right now so let's talk about what you're doing right now and how do you begin how do you how do these are all just astounding missions how do you start okay great question so what usually these missions they start off with a science question a big question that we're trying to answer and one of those big questions for the Mars exploration program has always been is there life on Mars you know um can we ever discover evidence that life could have existed on Mars in the past or in the present and that's been really defining to uh What uh our missions have looked like over the last couple years foreign like so you got the big question about it is there life on Mars how do you even begin to scratch at the surface of answering that question so we we take that big question and we actually have broken it down in some smaller questions and those have been um first is there a water on Mars can we find evidence of water on Mars then uh is what's Mars habitable if uh we know that there's water could life have ever existed and then the third question is uh can we find evidence of life on the surface of Mars and that's kind of formulated our general approach and strategy for Mars Explorations for the prior missions for example the Mars exploration Rovers that we launched in 2003 um had the focus of looking for evidence of water on Mars follow the water was the theme and then following that we had the Mars science laboratory Curiosity rover that launched in 2011 and its purpose was to build upon that first question of whether it's water on Mars um and then now look for habitability so could we ever could life have ever existed on Mars were the right ingredients for Life on Mars in the past and then that kind of leads us now to the third question can we find evidence of Life on Mars and that's the per purpose of the perseverance Rover right now it's looking for evidence that past life on Mars so you know all of these big questions um kind of help us really answer those that big defining question of is is there uh life on Mars and um and that's kind of what we're doing here with all of these missions put together so it feels like each question leads to more questions when do you actually start getting to answers when do you start getting to approaching how to answer those questions yeah that's that's a great point so in order to answer these questions we need to gather evidence on the rocks and on the surface of Mars so they get that evidence we need to come up with instruments so that's the next big thing coming up with the instruments and then when we have instruments we need to figure out how do we get those instruments to the rocks to those samples to gather that evidence um and that's where the engineering comes in we need to figure out how do we gather that data for the scientists to help answer that question um and we've we've done that in the past in a couple different ways we've sent orbiters and flyby missions to observe Mars from um from orbit or from afar so that's called remote science we also do in situ science where we can land a Rover or a Lander on the surface and actually a get up close to the to the rocks on the surface of a planet and try to gather information that could provide evidence for some of these questions and then the other approach which is what we're really interested in now is we could actually find those samples on the surface of Mars but bring them back to Earth in terms of sample return and then use their very own instruments here on Earth to be able to gather information and look for signs of past life on the surface looking for signs of past life on this surface okay that's we're working our way down from these big questions smaller questions you're now telling us situ approach all these different ways what do you personally as one of our robotics engineers how do you find a way to hook yourself into this or jump into how to really solve these questions that have been brought to you so we we come in as robotics engineers and try and address that that technology problem of uh what kind of Rover platform can we build to be able to bring these instruments to where we want to gather that data as well as how do we build manipulators to be able to take those instruments and touch the rock that we want to be able to sample and collect information on as well as build those tools to be able to gather samples so we can eventually bring them back home and that's that's been my focus at JPL is trying to help build that technology build that capability into our missions if you go to the next slide you can see an example of how we approach that so this is a example of a prototype Rover a four-wheeled Rover that's we built to be able to test out opportunities to gather access to rocks get instrument to the surfaces of planets and take samples and gather data for some of these scientific investigations as well as collect samples that we can return to back to Earth so this particular Rover had a four wheels that had a robotic arm and on that arm we mounted instruments like a prototype of a micro imager that could take up microscopic images of rocks a Raman spectrometer that could detect certain molecules on those rocks for example Organics as well as Scoops so we can scoop up samples to collect and eventually bring back this was part of the Arctic Mars analog Spa Barn Expedition which was a Expedition where we had a group of scientists and Engineers that took their instruments out to this island called svalbard which is high up in the Arctic Circle near the North Pole and it's what we call a Mars analog it has a very similar rocks and minerals and geology and very extreme conditions for Life similar to what we might find on Mars an excellent location to be able to test out these instruments that are looking for life and get scientist Engineers together to try to practice operating on Rover running through a mock Mission and going through the sequence of finding in interesting rocks on the surface drive into those rocks placing an instrument on the surface with the robotic arm running science to determine do we think this piece of rock could hold evidence of past life and then collecting that sample and storing it away um and so we lived if you look at the background you can actually see the ship the lonza and that's the ship that we lived in for for basically four weeks where we sailed around the island with two different locations deployed our equipment using helicopters and inflatable boats and then set up shop and ran experiments all day luckily we we were there during the summer time where we had 24-hour daylight so the sun would just go around the Horizon over the course of 24 hours maybe dip behind those mountains but it never really got dark really really odd experience um but uh you know fantastic environment to be able to test out our systems and you know through these types of tests we we gained a lot of confidence that we we could test out life detection instruments deploy them with Rovers make scientific judgments on the samples to determine um you know is this life was this rock created by generated by life was this uh Rock um generated by abiotic processes that could simulate evidence of life but but not um as as well as can we collect these samples in store them away so we can test them and bring them back home here on Earth so you've already started working on some of these things that you're kind of developing now for sample return in 2020 for a caching system years ago yeah that's right um something surprising is I would what I didn't really learn until I started working at JPL and working on these types of projects is we actually start developing in developing technology for this Mission more than 10 years in advance before we even launched so so this was actually um you know in the 2000s well before we even launched a marsh science laboratory but we were already starting thinking about these future missions of how do we develop a Rover to look for signs of life and how do we collect samples um and you know this this particular activity helped us demonstrate that we have the technology to be able to do some of that early assessment to get to places of interest where we might have Signs of Life um and uh you know we take the next step after doing these first sets of experiments to look at now um now that we know we can collect samples we know that we can uh deploy instruments to look for signs of life um how would we actually collect those samples and put them in metal tubes to actually bring back um if you go to the next slide you can see the next task um we started looking at uh in you know about 2009 2010 um how do we build a system now to take those samples that we've been analyzing and collecting on the surface and storm in a tiny little test tubes that we could package and seal up and bring home to Earth as part of our sample return the first one you see on the left that is the very first prototype of a sample handling encapsulation and caching system designed specifically for Mars sample return to collect samples storming tubes and put them in a little canister that could be brought back to Earth and surprisingly it uh it took us about a year to go from concept to First prototype and test and that's what you're seeing there and just for scale you can see an iPhone there and for anyone that doesn't recognize the model that's a legitimate model 3 iPhone back from 2009 that you're looking at so you can get an idea of the heritage of this technology as well as what the technology looked like back in the day and you can see on the right side what it turned into so after we matured that initial concept we finally built the Adaptive caching assembly which is on the perseverance right net Rover right now collecting samples and storing them in tubes so besides the technology like knowing how many updates of an iPhone there have been since then how do you know that you are making progress so we we constantly evaluate the technology we build and test build and test and along the way we we have something that we call a technology Readiness level so we we evaluate our technology determine um is it suitable uh for flight and take one step at a time where we start with testing these Technologies these prototypes in a laboratory environment kind of like what you would see on the left to make sure everything works make sure it functions and then we take the next step of testing these prototypes within a system and and take it out to the field into a relative environment if you go to the next slide you can see the next step of the process we took that that caching system prototype mounted it to one of our Mars technology Rovers this particular Rover is the Pluto Rover for some reason we like to name our Rovers after dogs so we we have a couple versions of this technology Rover one of them is called Fido another one is called K9 this one is called Pluto and you has a robotic arm on the end of it and a core a rotary percussive core very similar to the core that you see on the Rover right now on the first appearance of Rover we took this Rover out into the field of this particular field test site is Mono Lake it's basically an ancient saline Lake that has these calcium carbonates uh tufa deposits that you can see in the foreground that we're sampling and those those uh those formations are formed when you get water that seeps through these underwater fresh water Springs and they go into a saline environment and interact with a sediment and cause these formations and it's very similar to the types of environments that we may want to explore on Mars in some of the ancient Lake beds that you see on the surface so we took this Rover out and we were able to demonstrate for the first time collecting samples out in the field with a chlorine device and then storing them in Sample tubes using that caching Hardware that we had developed and that kind of moves us one step closer to having a system that we could prove out for a flight system and proposed on a mission um what it actually ended up being is uh it ended up being used for a proposal for the next Mars rover mission and in that time it was the Mars astrobiology explore cashier Maxi which is the Rover that later evolved into what we see now as the Mars 2020 perseverance Rover on Mars I'm doing the same thing collecting samples storing them in tubes and saving those for sample return so as you're starting to build these and eventually become great Rovers like this do you start to see what you're missing how do you What challenges are left once you kind of feel like you've got it mostly mostly done we when we get to the mission now the perseverance Mission we we go through a phase that we call a um formulation phase and that first phase of the mission is where we develop all of our high level requirements and science objectives as well as identify the key missing Technologies so we get one level deeper into the design figure out what are we missing now what do we need to develop next in order for this mission to be successful if you go to the next slide one of those things that we identified is now we know we can collect samples we know how to store those samples in tubes but how do we seal those sample tubes to preserve the science to the best of our ability and bring back the most science that we can without without um risking any of the characteristics of that sample that could contribute to the the science value of that sample uh in this nice image you can see a cross-section of sample tube these are the sample tubes that we're collecting samples from ours and on the far right side you can see the Hermetic seal that plugs off the end of that sample tube and you think it's you just need to be able to seal up that sample tube as long as you keep the sample in place um you know we're great we're ready to go we can send those samples back but there's actually a lot more to it not only do we need to think about how can we see lift that too but we need to think about how well do we need to seal that tube up um can we can we seal up that tube so we don't let any of the sample out as well as not let you know one molecule of water that might be in that sample out or any volatiles any gases that could escape and how can we ensure that this seal is gas tight hermetic not only that we need to really think about the materials that we build this seal and the tube out of um the last thing you want to do is build the sample tube out of the material that's going to react chemically with a sample or contaminate the sample with any Trace elements that could mask any particular science that you're are using to detect biosignatures or learn about the geology of that sample in order you want to have a tube that's that's is going to magnetically interact with a sample that it could remove any of the paleomagnetic signatures that might help you learn about the past magnetic fields on Mars and you want to have that seal and that tube be able to be cleaned so we can perfectly clean and sterilize that tube prevent any contamination from Earth particles or Earth molecules or any organic matter that's that could confuse the scientists when they're analyzing the sample and keep it clean and then kind of lastly you need this you need this sealed sample tube to be able to survive all the extreme environments that we would see on Mars extreme environments that we would see in space on the way back to Earth as well as all the rocket launches off the surface of Mars and Landing back to Earth and and all the dust and abrasion that you're going to see when you're collecting the samples so um so building the seal that that meets all those requirements um that is able to hermetically seal the sample tube even if it's covered in dust and scratched up from the corn process and then be able to survive um day and night for years on Mars as it can get down to negative 128 degrees Celsius at night time and then up way past uh higher than room temperature during the daytime if the tube's sitting out in the sun so you're going to get hot and cold hot and cold um you know many many times and and then you're going to have vibrations and Landing shocks space environments and you want that seal tube to be able to be you know basically bulletproof and foolproof um so surprisingly it we it took us years to be able to develop that that little seal and that was one of the key technologies that we really focused our attention on because it is where the science value is being stored and held and and it's the one thing that we're sending to Mars and trying to bring back to Earth um to give you an idea of what that looked like if you go to the next slide you can see some of the early prototypes of the seals that we developed to plug up the top of that tube um and we we would go through a process where we would do background research you read papers learn about the state of the art state of Technology of the field of ceiling tubes or sealing anything as well as build lots of prototypes and do lots of testing and test in all types of conditions and environments these are some of the earliest examples of seals of some of them were mechanically activated some of them were heat activated using the shape memory Alloys and based on what we learned from this early Focus technology development task we ended up taking the best qualities from these seals and deriving the actual seal that we use on the March 2020 sample tubes to seal the sale some you can see that in the next image where this is the actual seal hermetic seal that we use to plug open the tubes it's basically a titanium seal that's about the size of the thimble and it has on the outside a very sharp tooth that's pointed out kind of on the left and that tooth is covered in about 30 microns of gold pure gold and what happens is you press that ferrule that's on the top of the seal down into that seal cup it expands that tooth and that seal cup about 30 um you know less than a millimeter and that seal basically impinges and and pokes its way into the inside of the tube and that gold coating seals up any any little cracks or any little scratches as well as encapsulate any dust and we're actually able to get a hermetic seal that's helium tight and that can survive all the environments a lot of engineering went into the seal it you know took us 10 years of prototyping and development and we we actually built probably well over a hundred of these seals and tested lots and lots of seal tests and Sample tubes to make sure that we can survive all the extreme environments that we would see on Mars as well as all the environments that that we would predict we could see on our way back to Earth I just I just want to just reiterate this we start with these big ideas and questions how do you do this how do you get it back think about the gigantic how big these rovers are they're really the size of a car and really it comes down to this small tiny little seal in order for us to be able to continue to answer those questions that's astounding do you then start to build the real thing yeah go please yeah yeah we we do and uh that's the exciting part a lot a lot of time and effort goes into coming up with the ideas developing technology testing it out iterating on it um and then once once you once you've optimized your design and you know optimize it to the Micron level of detail um you can actually start building them so if you go to the next slide this is a a photo of us actually building the very first flight hermetic seal and the aseptic clean room at the jet propulsion lab um where you know we're all covered up in in goggles and mass and uh double gloves um wearing these suits to basically keep the hardware as clean as possible um you know trying to keep any particles any molecules um any types of organic matter and limit that exposure of that material to these sample tubes and seals I'm the guy in the far right the tall guy you might be able to I don't know if you can tell by the eyes um but that's me right there and so and then we're with our engineers and their technicians um and our quality insurance assembling these seals uh so we can get ready to set up on the Roadster over to Mars very cool um what other type of assembly uh what kind of T key Tech do you have to find kind of to advance this as you keep moving so you know we as as we keep on moving uh we we need to be able to um yeah we need to be able to prove that this works and test it out in in an environment that simulates the Enviro for Mars um and and that kind of gives us it gives us sense that it gives us confidence that this is going to work that we're going to be able to bring these samples home um and uh what you can kind of see in the next image I think this sums it up nicely is we we develop these Technologies over the course of years um and we started off 10 years ago coming up with our very first prototypes for these sample tubes and and then what you see on the right is uh what we came up with at the very end developing all that technology to not just seal up the soup but but drop it off on the surface of Mars and this is very exciting this this is the uh the first staple tubes that we dropped on Mars over the last few weeks and it's only been in the last month we now dropped off I believe eight tubes on the surface of Mars um ready to be picked up and these this is the real thing you know Mars sample return is is becoming real and um these tubes on the surface of Mars are kind of proving that um and that and we talked about uh missions they start off with a question and this is a a very nice um bridge to the next question of how do we bring these samples back and uh some of you even be asking that you know we have these surface we have the surface of Mars with these sample tubes so what is the what is the way that we're going to bring these staples back and how do we answer that question so what we're doing now is we're actually working NASA and Esau are working together uh to answer that question and starting to design the missions to start bringing these samples back home um the way we're going about it is we're developing two missions one of them is a sample retrieval Lander it's going to launch in a few years it's going to have a Lander that lands on the surface and it will have a pair of fetch helicopters that will be able to fly over grab these sample tubes bring them back to the Lander as well as have the capability for the perseverance Rover itself the drive back to the Lander and drop-off sample tubes and that Lander is gonna have a rocket called the Mars Ascent vehicle that's going to launch these samples up into orbit around Mars and put them in orbit within a sample container called an orbiting sample container or the US and then we have another mission that we're developing called the Earth return orbit emission that's going to launch to Mars orbit grab this container of samples in Mars orbit and bring it back to Earth and then spin eject it within an earth entry system that's going to land back on Earth where we can collect the samples and we we actually started thinking about how do we approach that um well before we even launched the Mars 2020 Rover and while I was working on the seals and working with the team to build a perseverance Rover I also had a small team that started thinking about that next problem of how do we capture that sample in orbit and bring it back to Earth go to the next slide you can see some of the early development and testing that we were doing uh in 2018 this is a one of the technologies that we were testing out for capturing a orbiting sample in 0g and it was it was a really interesting test we would build this prototype um we would build a prototype put it into a test bed that you see on the right and we actually got to go on to a a zero g flight um where you would be on a jet it would um it would basically uh fly up really high at a steep Bank go up to the sky and then free fall for 20 seconds and you would get microgravity or a zero g that you would be able to test out some things like US capture and also tracking the OS and you can see some of those tests on the right side where we were we had a launcher that would launch an orbiting sample container that would directly have those sample tubes and this particular device was a flux pinning technology where we would have um magnets and superconductors to try and capture and levitate that sample container in orbit you can see those little blinking lights as well too those are April tags we were also testing a vision system to be the detect these little fiducials what we call them these little indicators on the US and on the on the hardware to be able to do pose estimation using cameras as well as do object tracking to track the trajectory of this us for modeling and simulations that we were doing one of the other prototypes that we built if you go to the next slide is this prototype or being sample capture system and I can see it operating on the right side and basically it was a giant capture cone we would have an OS that would simulate going through this capture cone and Trigger Optical uh emitter detector Pairs and it would cause this lid to close and this transfer mechanism to swing over with a paddle and slowly push and funnel the OS down into the capture cone into a receptacle where we could later pick up and insert into an earth entry system so this was basically the very one of the very first prototypes that we built for a organ sample capture system and it actually set set the stage for the architecture of what we're building now to be able to capture this Us in orbit around Mars for these future missions um and we're already starting to do the preliminary design and detail design of these systems that capture the orbiting sample container and definitely look look forward to seeing how that progresses well we're talking about planning and all of these different small pieces going together um do you have any idea do we have anything that kind of can show what that plan for right now might be yeah let's let's take a look if you go to the next slide we have a nice animation that's showing what the current plan is for sample return um this is really exciting so you're seeing a Lander this is the next the next vehicle the next mission that we're sending to Mars is going to be a Lander there's a 2020 Rover collecting samples and uh here's what it might look like we're gonna land a Lander on the surface of Mars as part of the sample retrieval mission that Lander is going to be able to retrieve these sample tubes sealed up sample tubes with Martian samples it'll have a sample transfer system with a robotic arm that will deliver these sample tubes and insert them into this orbiting sample container and then we're going to close up the top of that container insert it into a margin set vehicle and then launch that rocket from the surface of Mars and basically uh put put that sample container up into orbit and this this is really exciting never have we launched anything from the surface of Mars so this is going to be a first um and then following that we're gonna have that orbiting sample container in orbit around Mars uh where we'll have another vehicle this Earth return Orbiter which was the system that we were just showing it's going to capture that orbiting sample container and install it into this Earth entry system and then that Orbiter is going to make its way back to Earth and then when we get to earth we're going to eject that Earth entry system and it's going to arrive on earth safe and sounds where we'll be able to collect the samples that that we're collecting on Mars and look at them in our Laboratories so yeah super exciting um for one I'm I'm super excited to see these samples return to Earth um you know I'll be uh I'd be excited to be the first person uh in that sample receiving facility I've seen the first two getting opened up um and I'd love to see what we get out of that in terms of science that's astounding I mean landing on Mars is difficult enough but all these different steps that you're talking about putting together we've had a lot of amazing comments and questions from our audience tonight so let's get Lindsay involved here what are they saying how's it going out there absolutely thank you Brian and thank you Palace so Travis on YouTube asked what is the likelihood of using more soft robots and what are the advantages of utilizing soft robots with complex geometrical forms that have the ability to change shape that's that's a great question um I I love that question because I'm a robotics engineer so we love looking at all different ways um to use technology and Robotics to help us explore places that you can't get to with the current technology and I think soft robots um basically they're they're robot set can um change shape um change Form and Function to be able to Contour uh to terrain or or to um to form shapes that could give the robot more flexibility and I could see soft robots being used to grip things that are odd shapes as well as to really help us go to a very complex places that wheeled robots can't get to like steep Cliffs or very Rocky terrain that a robot with wheels might not be able to easily Traverse So Soft robots and the flexibility you can get out of those types of robots can help us interact with the environment a lot more and and know I I think those those types of robots um could really help us um not just on Mars but other places in our solar system that have very um you know treacherous and challenging territory and terrain that we we'd want to explore great thank you so darmic on LinkedIn asked how much low-level programming knowledge is needed for robotics as opposed to higher level or algorithm based knowledge and what's the role of high and low level in the development of robotics a great question um we actually need both so uh we we have a low-level programming that's that goes into our control of our Motors you know how do you get a motor to run at a current uh constant speed or accelerate those Motors um as well as uh react to um to certain forces um and protect yourself if loads get too high or temperatures um you know are out of the range that we want to run our system at and uh and then we have a lot of high level commands and high level behaviors that we program in which are like vehicle navigation pattern recognition looking at the environment to be able to make sense of of targets that we want to be able to put an instrument onto as well as do a lot of high level decision making so we actually have both so um we have teams that develop the low level controllers we have teams that look at the high level um autonomy and and both of those teams really need to work together in order to get a robot to function and be able to form a complex autonomous behaviors great thank you Philippe on Facebook would like to know how do you keep the most sensitive instruments at a stable temperature and greetings from Mexico hey thanks a lot um thanks for joining in man great question so so we we do care about texture you know every Everything has a has a preferred operated operational temperature we don't want things to get too cold because they could freeze or break we don't want them to get too hot either so we we actively monitor those sensitive instruments with temperature sensors like prts and thermocouples and as we measure those temperatures we also put heaters on where if the temperature gets too cold we'll turn on that heater and bring that temperature back up to a temperature a survival temperature that the instruments are specified to survive at and then sometimes temperatures certain sensors and certain instruments and certain mechanisms perform best on when they're at a high enough or a certain temperature range so it will actively warm up our systems to be able to get to the right temperature so we can optimally run them and get the best signal to noise special and the best performance out of those instruments so that's you know a very good question now I would also point out um it goes the other way as well too some instruments work really well on cold temperatures so um so we actually have active cooling systems to be able to bring the texture down to the best operational temperature for those those uh those systems and those instruments to operate in thank you and this question is Donna coming from LinkedIn and it's on behalf of her 12 year old son Josh does the dust affect the Rover a dust does affect the Rover in many ways you know you might you might have heard about the solar panels on some of the solar powered Rovers like the Mars exploration Rovers and insight Flander uh it's having dusts on solar panels can affect the amount of energy that we'll get for the Sun so that's something we worry about when we have the solar panel um solar powered Rovers also dust can get into the bearings and the mechanisms and help you know help to degrade those mechanisms so they so they start losing performance to move in a little bit more slower or you know even stall so we take a lot of measures to prevent dust from from interacting with our our mechanisms by putting all types of seals and Bellows around different mechanisms and different devices and at the locations where things are rotating or sliding and then we also test uh so we actually will build prototypes there throw a bunch of dust on them and test it out in Dusty environments and running many many cycles on it to verify that we can still operate underneath Dusty conditions great Caleb on LinkedIn would like to know how many subsystems is a Rover broken into and how many parties are typically involved in the design validation and testing of a finalized River yeah yeah that's a really good question as well so we have uh we we have we have a Rover or Lander and it's broken down into a couple different subsystems some of the main ones are structures and deployables so we'll have the mechanical structure in the frame of of our system we also have avionics which is all the electronics and the computers we'll have a software subsystem that captures all of the code and the behavior will have power so all of the the batteries and the power cables and the harness and then we'll have other things like instruments various instruments and sampling systems and those can be all their own subsystems the various instruments that we bolt onto the Lander or Rover to be able to do the measurements and the sampling systems like robotic arms and drills and and other mechanisms that be able to do certain things like interact with environment and collect samples and those are just a few of them and we all work together during to verify and validate our system so once we develop our subsystems test them out at the subsystem level we'll bring it all together in what we call assembly integration and test and start assembling those various subsystems together testing them out you know bit by bit to make sure they work as a system and then we'll kind of do a comprehensive test where we run through the full set of operations with all of our subsystems working together to verify and our overall system meets the requirements and validate that it does the job that we needed to do that we designed it to do to complete our mission successfully great and Marie on Facebook asked greetings from Puerto Rico how many trials are conducted during the development phase before launch how many trials um we we usually do a good number of of Trials um at all various various levels um and actually what what we usually do is we usually build at least two versions of our systems we'll build the flight version the one that we're going to launch and send to Mars or send to wherever uh Planet we're going to and we'll do at least one test um at various levels to to test the functionality um uh typically we'll run a test in ambient so in in the laboratory environments um at at room temperature but then we'll also test out the system again in a thermal vacuum environment we'll bring the temperature down to a certain to uh the coldest temperature that we expect to operate in bring the pressure down to what simulates whether it be space or Mars pressure test out our system there and then also what we do is we build it you typically build an engineering model or another copy of the Rover or another copy of the instruments and then run lots of tests and lots of Trials on that copy particularly on the on the ground once we launch for example Rover to Mars we have another Rover here that we built and use here on Earth to be able to test driving on very challenged rain or chest Gathering samples before we try it out on Mars so we can prove that it's going to work and operate as we expected um to the best uh you know confidence that we can before we do it on Mars great and Paula to wrap us up this is our last question coming from arseny on LinkedIn what are the main disciplines should every space robotics engineer be familiar with yeah great question as well um I'll say I think I think you know about science and math that's you build we build our system off of based off of the latest science data and we use a lot use a lot of math to design our mechanisms and our Hardware um and specific fields in engineering that we care about are mechanical engineering for the mechanisms the mechanical systems electrical engineering to operate all of the sensors and the power of the systems and then also a computer science programming our robotic systems to be able to perform actions and functions and operations and those are some of the key things that we you think about when you're looking at robotic systems also system engineering is very important understanding how all of these parts come together um and and I would say um you know math and science are important but also uh what what you need to do is you need to read a lot so reading is quite important I I have to read a lot of textbooks and manuals and emails to learn and keep up to date with the latest technology so I know how to apply the the latest and greatest of what people have learned also writing is very important I do a lot of report writing and I have to publish my findings so everyone can also benefit and learn about the things that we've tried and the things that worked and didn't work public speaking is important like right now we're talking and communicating our ideas selling our ideas so we can promote them and and I would even say physical education Being Fit is is also critical because as you saw some of the some of those tests were going out to the field we're going out to these extreme environments like the Arctic um sometimes we have to hike up a mile up a mountain with 30 pounds of robot equipment on our back and you need to be in good shape and have good endurance and stamina to test things out all day in 24 hour you know sunlight in the Arctic and um and then not let that wear you down so being very well-rounded is very important being good at building teams and leading teams is is also critical because we don't build a robot all by ourselves it takes a team of different disciplines and different engineers and and scientists and program managers working together to build a robotic system and and then just you know being uh having having the rights um the right personality and and the right perseverance to be able to make your way through of some of the challenges that we have to face as we invent and test and prototype and prove out some of these new technologies those are a lot of great skills to have and that is unfortunately all the time that we have for tonight uh folks please join us next month when we discuss perseverance we've discussed that Rover's two years on Mars I would like to thank our co-host Lindsay and everyone behind the scenes who make these talks possible it truly does take a team I would like to thank our excellent speaker Paolo for sharing his creativity his passion and his curiosity with us and finally the biggest thank you of all goes to all of you who join us each and every single month stay safe stay kind stay curious and we'll see you in February [Music]

2023-01-22 15:22

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