Researchers in Dayton work on NASA’s next Mars mission
UDRI testing prototype generator for new rover in extreme conditions.
NASA’s next mission to Mars is in the works, and the University of Dayton Research Institute is involved in a key facet of that planning.
UDRI is testing a prototype power generator that the university says bodes well for NASA’s plans to visit Mars with a new rover mission in three years.
UDRI scientist Chad Barklay and UES engineer Allen Tolston, who works in Beavercreek, has tested the rover’s prototype generator in extreme conditions, wrapping the machine in an insulating material that helped raise the temperature to 428 Fahrenheit in a bid to see how the system held up.
Temperatures on Mars can range from about minus 100 degrees F to 40 degrees on a Mars summer day. And the generator needs to withstand it all and more.
“With no power, there is no mission,” Barklay said Wednesday at UDRI’s River Campus headquarters.
Barklay and Tolston spent 36 hours camped next to the one of the generators while they heated the unit to a temperature that’s about 100 degrees hotter than the top temperature experienced by the current Mars rover Curiosity, according to UDRI.
In February, NASA scientists narrowed potential Mars landing sites in 2020 down to three choices, at least one of which is likely to be warmer than sites where previous rovers have landed, UDRI said.
That’s why UD researchers performed the high-temperature test on the prototype — to see if it would successfully operate at higher temperatures.
“Right now, it’s the only power system (for Mars rovers) that NASA has,” Barklay said.
UDRI houses two generator qualification units that are identical to Curiosity’s generator, except they are powered and heated with electricity rather than plutonium, UDRI said.
For the past three years, researchers have been designing and running experiments to provide NASA with data related to Curiosity’s continued exploration, as well as in support of Mars 2020 and other future missions.
“The maximum temperature at Gale Crater (on Mars) is about 32 F during the day, but it could be up to 35 degrees warmer at Columbia Hills,” Barkley said in release from UDRI. “Although that doesn’t sound like much, an increased Martian surface temperature means the surface of (the generator) could potentially get much hotter.” The test went well. Said Barklay, “It went better than anybody could have hoped. Everyone was very impressed with our ability to design and develop a test setup and protocols that were unlike anything ever done before. We were very pleased.”
NASA is expected to choose a final landing spot in the next two years, UDRI said. Mars 2020 is targeted for launch in July 2020.