Sampling System for Hypothesized Surfaces – SESE
INSTITUTION
Arizona State University (School of Earth and Space Exploration)
CLASS
Cobalt Class (2019 – 2020)
STUDENT TEAM
John Chambers, Aerospace Engineering (Astronautics), Earth and Space Exploration (Astrobiology and Biogeosciences) (Double Major)
Mason Hoey, Earth and Space Exploration (Explorations Systems Design)
Jacob Kramer, Earth and Space Exploration (Astrobiology and Biogeosciences)
Eric Laughlin, Earth and Space Exploration (Astrobiology and Biogeosciences)
Johnathan Mcdougal, Earth and Space Exploration (Explorations Systems Design)
Ciara Sypherd, Aerospace Engineering (Astronautics), Earth and Space Exploration (Astrobiology and Biogeosciences) (Double Major)
Kaitlin Webber, Earth and Space Exploration (Astrophysics)
ACADEMIC GUIDANCE
Dr. Chris Groppi, Associate Professor, ASU School Of Earth and Space Exploration
PROJECT DESCRIPTION
The Psyche mission is set to launch in 2022 and arrive at the asteroid in 2026. It is an orbiter mission and will not land on the surface. Instead, it will spend 21 months performing science operations from four staging orbits, which become successively closer. This will be NASA’s first space mission to a world likely made largely of metal, rather than rock or ice. The Psyche mission will take a giant step forward in our understanding of this mysterious world. It is possible to imagine, however, that after learning about Psyche from orbit, there may be scientists and engineers interested in proposing a subsequent mission to actually land on the asteroid to explore and sample its surface. Capstone teams are invited to take on that challenge!
Designing to the range of hypothesized surfaces that might be found at Psyche (and keeping in mind other constraints such as its gravity), the team is designing and prototyping a sampling system capable of effectively extracting scientific samples from each of the hypothesized surfaces and, potentially, a single caching system able to cache each type. Hypothesized surfaces may include: mostly flat metallic surface, flat metallic with metal and/or rocky debris, rough/high-relief metallic and/or rocky terrain, high-relief metallic crater walls.