ExoMars Drill breadboard on Rover vehicle
Date: 08 July 2010
Copyright: Thales Alenia Space - Italia & SELEX Galileo
This photograph, which shows the Drill breadboard mounted on the ExoMars Rover vehicle breadboard, was taken during a series of tests that were performed at the premises of Thales Alenia Space (TAS-I) in March 2010. The purpose of these tests was to verify the performance of the Drill when installed on the Rover vehicle.
During this particular test, the Rover wheels were replaced with pads. The pads are used to study the effect of eliminating the flexibility of the Rover's wheels.
The tests included multiple drilling in 2-metre-deep columns of materials. The very fine sand in the centre of the container simulates the characteristics of a typical Mars terrain and was one of several different materials with different mineralogical characteristics that have been selected as reference materials and used to evaluate and characterise the performance of the system. The reference materials included: gas-concrete, red brick, tuff, marble, olivine powder (to simulate regolith), and fine sand.
