It’s pretty genius.
crash sofa
Over the years, NASA has employed a number of mechanisms, from giant airbags and parachutes to jetpacks, to silently land rovers on the surface of Mars.
Now, government agencies are testing an entirely new approach to intentionally crashing spacecraft into the surface of Mars, but protecting them in a “crumple zone,” the same basic principle that keeps car passengers safe in the event of a crash. I am planning to
As NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) points out in a blog post, scientists are toying with the concept of an experimental lander, calling it the Simplified High Impact Energy Landing Device (SHIELD for short). calling. A rover to the more dangerous regions of Mars.
crumpled zone
JPL says SHIELD “uses an accordion-like collapsible base that acts like a rumpled zone in a car to absorb the energy of a hard impact.”
To test the new approach, NASA dropped the electronics from a tower at more than 100 miles per hour and dropped it onto a full-size mockup of SHIELD’s attenuator, an inverted pyramid made up of metal rings.
The experiment was what JPL called a “huge success.”
“The only hardware that was damaged was some plastic parts that we weren’t worried about,” SHIELD project manager Lou Giersch said in the post.
beyond the red
JPL said using the technology could make a Mars landing significantly cheaper “by simplifying the disastrous approach, descent, and landing process,” increasing the chances of landing on a barren planet. claims to have sex.
“We believe we can go to more dangerous areas where we don’t want to risk trying to deploy a multi-billion dollar rover with the current landing system,” Giersch said. We might even be able to land some of these in various difficult-to-access locations to do so.”
This technology could have implications well beyond our nearest planetary neighbors.
SHIELD team member Velibor Ćormarković added, “If we can make a hard landing on Mars, we know that SHIELD can also work on planets with denser atmospheres and on the moon.”
Other Mars: NASA fires tiny bullets at Mars rover
