CAESAR team members are hard at work designing, building, and testing the instruments that would bring back the first sample from the nucleus of a comet.
Honeybee Robotics, Pasadena, CA
Kathryn Luczek, engineer at Honeybee Robotics, assembles the Sample Acquisition System in a clean room. This hardware is being assembled in a clean room because it is important that internal mechanisms be kept clear of debris so that they will function properly both before and after testing.
NASA Glenn Zero G Facility
Justin Spring, engineer at Honeybee Robotics, prepares the material used to simulate the particles expected on the surface of Comet 67P. The simulated material includes fine particles that can be inhaled, so safety equipment such as dust masks and filters are used to protect personnel.
Honeybee Robotics, Pasadena, CA
A group of engineers from Honeybee Robotics (from left to right: Philip Chu, Kathryn Luczek and Steven Ford) pose in front of the Sample Acquisition System after a successful vibration test. Vibration testing is used to ensure that hardware would survive the rigorous launch environment experienced as a spacecraft leaves the Earth’s surface.
NASA Glenn Zero G Facility
An early prototype of the Sample Acquisition System was tested in zero gravity at the NASA Glenn Zero Gravity Research Facility. This image shows a prototype of the Sample Container after a successful test, which is completely full of material meant to simulate the physical properties of the particles expected on the surface of Comet 67P.
NASA Glenn Zero G Facility
From left to right, Andrew Peekema, Justin Spring and Kathryn Luczek, engineers at Honeybee Robotics, recover an early prototype of the Sample Acquisition System after a microgravity test at the Zero Gravity Research Facility. This early design was rapidly prototyped from plastic material to save cost, and reduce the time required to build the system.
NASA Glenn Zero G Facility
Justin Spring, Project Engineer at Honeybee Robotics prepares the Sample Acquisition System for a zero gravity test at NASA Glenn’s Zero Gravity Research Facility. The sampler includes a number of “ripper tines” which are spring-loaded pivoting spikes specifically designed to break up particles in the path of the sampler that may be cohesively bonded together. Once broken up, these particles can be collected by the sampler using the compressed gas system. The Zero Gravity Research Facility provides 5.18 seconds of microgravity by allowing an experiment vehicle to freefall in a vacuum chamber to a distance of 432 feet (132 meters). Testing is performed in microgravity to closely simulate conditions at the comet’s surface.