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SpaceNut

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From: New Hampshire

Registered: 2004-07-22

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Re: Mars Sample Return (MSR) Mission

Sample Return Technology Successfully Tested on Xodiac Rocket landing to collect a sample of more than 320 grams of top soil from the surface of the desert floor.

PlanetVac is a surface soil collection system for a sample return mission. The configuration tested would replace a foot pad of a planetary lander spacecraft. The goal is to bring back a sample of surface soil from a celestial body.

“Bringing something back from another planet, celestial body, is the Holy Grail of planetary science,”

The pneumatic sampler foot pad starts operation after the lander touches down on a surface. Compressed gas is injected into the foot pad enclosure, lofting the soil into a cyclone separator for collection.

“What it does is kind of like your vacuum,” The pneumatic sampler foot pad starts operation after the lander touches down on a surface. Compressed gas is injected into the foot pad enclosure, lofting the soil into a cyclone separator for collection.

“What it does is kind of like your vacuum,” “It creates an area of high pressure in the front and uses an area of low pressure in the back to suck up the sample.

“The Flight Opportunities program allowed us to take the PlanetVac idea and actually strap it on to Masten’s rocket putting it in a situation more realistic to what it might encounter in a space mission,” said Spring. “This reduces the risk since we now know it can survive both landing and heating loads as well as the rocket environment and still collect the sample and retain it to come back.”