Team 517: NASA Onboarding and Orientation

ABSTRACT

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Evidence has been found suggesting that signs of Martian life would most likely be discovered as microscopic fossils found in rocks. To aid in the search of life on Mars we are designing a robotic arm for a future Mars rover. The arm can collect, orient, and store rock samples from the surrounding environment. This system allows for scientists to decide if it is worth bringing collected rock samples back to Earth for further inspection.

With the discovery of flowing water on the Martian surface, the existence of past or present life on Mars appears more likely than previously thought. Bringing rocks from Mars to Earth in order to study them is expensive. NASA desires to effectively use resources, such as fuel and storage, by only transporting promising rock samples back to Earth. To help with this problem, we are designing a way to perform an initial study of Martian rocks while they are still on Mars.

The primary focus of our project is the end-effector (the hand of the arm). This part of the arm picks up rocks to expose them to sensors on the rover. The fingers of the end-effector are versatile and provide gripping and rotation of samples. The end-effector will expose the entire surface of the rocks to the sensors by rotating it about two pairs of perpendicular fingers. This allows the scientists to examine any point on the sample with the sensors. The sensors collect data to determine whether the rocks are likely to contain evidence of life. The robotic arm discards unfavorable samples back to the Martian surface before moving on to other rocks. Rock samples deemed acceptable by the sensors are moved into storage to be returned to Earth in future missions.