Drilling Automation for Subsurface Planetary Exploration

Abstract

Future in-situ lunar/martian resource utilization and characterization, as well as the scientific search for life on Mars, will require access to the subsurface and hence drilling. Drilling on Earth is hard – an art form more than an engineering discipline. The limited mass, energy and manpower in planetary drilling situations makes application of terrestrial drilling techniques problematic. The Drilling Automation for Mars Exploration (DAME) project’s purpose is to develop and field-test drilling automation and robotics technologies for projected use in missions to the Moon and Mars in the 2011-15 period.