NASA's Mars 2020 Gets a Dose of Space Here on Earth
NASA's Mars 2020 spacecraft has completed tests that are the best Earthly approximations what the spacecraft will endure during launch and interplanetary cruise.
NASA's Mars 2020 spacecraft has completed acoustic and thermal
vacuum (TVAC) testing at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.
The acoustic test of the spacecraft that will carry the Mars 2020 rover to a
soft touchdown in Jezero Crater on Feb. 18, 2021, is the best Earthly
approximation for what the spacecraft will endure during launch, where it will
encounter potentially destructive levels of sound and vibration. TVAC
introduces the vacuum and extreme temperatures of space that could cause
components to malfunction or fail."First
we blast it with sound to make sure nothing vibrates loose," said David Gruel, the Mars 2020 assembly, test and launch
operations manager at JPL. "Then, after a thorough examination, we 'put it
in space' by placing the spacecraft in this huge vacuum chamber we have here at
JPL. We pump out the atmosphere, then chill parts of it and cook others while testing
the performance of the entire spacecraft."The
first part of the process occurred on April 12, when the spacecraft "stack" was bombarded by sound from nitrogen-pressurized
speakers in JPL's Acoustic Test Chamber. The stack includes the aeroshell as
well as a rover stand-in (the real rover is undergoing final
assembly in JPL's High Bay 1 cleanroom) and other components. Together, they are assembled, or stacked, in the same configuration as when it launches toward Mars in
July 2020."We test the hardware components with a random
noise spectrum in order to replicate a launch environment," said Andy
Rose, manager of the Environmental Test Facilities at JPL. "We reach sound
levels as high as 150 decibels, which would really rattle your fillings if you
were inside the chamber at the time."Of course, the technicians
waited for each several-minute run to end before opening the chamber door to
inspect the spacecraft in their cleanroom attire (the spacecraft must remain contamination-free
to adhere toplanetary
protection rules). By day's end, the stack had been acoustically tested
and inspected six times. Then the vehicle was double-bagged in clean antistatic
nylon film and transported back to the Spacecraft Assembly Facility's High Bay
1 cleanroom."For the acoustic test,
the stack had the heat shield pointed up, but for the thermal vacuum test, it had
to be down," said Gruel. "The best place to turn it over is the
cleanroom, where we have a fixture designed for that process." Once the
stack passed muster, the team rebagged it and sent it out for thermal testing.Into
the ColdOn April 26, the stack entered
JPL's 25-foot-wide, 85-foot-tall (8-meter-by-26-meter) Space Simulator
Facility. The historic chamber has hosted spacecraft from NASA's Mariner
missions of the early 1960s to Voyager and Cassini to all of the Mars rovers. The
2020 stack was suspended from cables so the cold realities of interplanetary
cruise could hit the spacecraft from every angle.With the 16-ton door closed, a
near-vacuum environment was established. Then, as the Mars 2020 test team
looked on, the baffled chamber walls were flooded with liquid nitrogen to chill
it to -200 degrees Fahrenheit (-129 degrees Celsius). To simulate the Sun's
rays that Mars 2020 will encounter during its voyage, powerful xenon lamps
several floors below the chamber illuminated, their light directed onto a
mirror at the top of the chamber and reflected down on the spacecraft. Eight
days later the lamps were turned off, atmosphere was reintroduced to the
chamber, and the door opened. Acoustic and thermal vacuum testing was complete."This is the most comprehensive stress test you can put a spacecraft through here
on Earth," said Gruel. "We flew in our simulated space environment
for a week and a day, checking and rechecking the performance of every onboard system and
subsystem. And everything looked great - which is a good thing, because next
time this spacecraft stack hits a vacuum, it will be on its way to Mars for
real."On May 10, the stack returned yet again to
the High Bay 1 cleanroom. Just feet away, technicians worked on the 2,314-pound
(1,050-kilogram) Mars 2020 rover that will be part of the stack at launch. The
rover already had more than 90% of the components that will make up the interior
of the chassis, from the science instruments and computers to subsystems and
electrical boxes to the organized tangle of electrical wiring connecting them
all.The 2020 rover carries an entirely new suite
of instruments, including a sample-caching system that will collect samples of
Mars for return to Earth on subsequent missions. The mission will launch from
Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida in July of 2020 and land at Jezero
Crater on Feb. 18, 2021.The Mars 2020 Project at JPL manages rover
development for NASA's Science Mission Directorate. NASA's Launch Services
Program, based at the agency's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, is responsible
for launch management. Mars 2020 will launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force
Station in Florida.For more information on Mars 2020, visit:https://www.nasa.gov/mars2020For more information about NASA's exploration of Mars, visit:https://www.nasa.gov/mars