Defining the Technical Requirements for Subsurface Mars Driller

Abstract

Introduction: The international plans for robotic Mars exploration are focusing on the subsurface sampling and sample analysing methods of Martian regolith. In the launch window of 2009, both ESA and NASA have preliminary plans to send a rover with deep-drilling capabilities. International companies and organisations have designed prototypes and engineering test models for drilling purposes, such as the MRoSA2 driller (see Figure 1), Rosetta driller and several other planetary drilling applications. Authors of this publication have been personally involved in especially the ESA’s MRoSA2 project [7]. The focus was to develop a prototype of miniaturized planetary driller, which could perform up to 2 meter deep drilling and sampling of Martian regolith.