Apollo Drill Power?

I'm in a process of finishing my Ph.D. thesis about Mars drilling
instrument design. In a literature part of my thesis I compare
different old drill machines that have flown or existed in concept
level. There have been several drills in space, such as the Luna,
Venera, Apollo, Deep Space 2, Philae SD2, etc.

However, I haven't been able to find information about the power
of the ALSD (Apollo Lunar Surface Drill) electric motor. I have
used Google, libraries, old publications etc. I even mailed the
company that made the drills (no-one knew about the ALSD values..).

This is not the most important thing, but it would be nice to "fill
the comparison table" of that chapter of my thesis. Does anyone know
the power level of the ALSD electric motor, battery capacity etc.?
(I know the ALSD mass, dimensions and the drill rod specs)

With best regards,

Matti Anttila
Finland
http://antti.la/

Matti Anttila schrieb:

This is not the most important thing, but it would be nice to "fill
the comparison table" of that chapter of my thesis. Does anyone know
the power level of the ALSD electric motor, battery capacity etc.?
(I know the ALSD mass, dimensions and the drill rod specs)

Maybe this helps:

Apollo Lunar Surface Drill /ALSD/ Final report (8MB)
http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/ca...1969002958.pdf

Harald

Matti Anttila wrote in :

However, I haven't been able to find information about the power
of the ALSD (Apollo Lunar Surface Drill) electric motor. I have
used Google, libraries, old publications etc. I even mailed the
company that made the drills (no-one knew about the ALSD values..).


Try the local paper from the town the factory was in. It'll mean reading
through a lot of microfilm, but you might just luck into a story on the
local guys at the plant and the gadget they sent to the moon. Small town
weeklies are especially likely to have this sort of story.
Microfilm in the town libary is free to use,too, if you ignore the small
detail of travel from Finland.

On 2005-02-24, Matti Anttila wrote:
I'm in a process of finishing my Ph.D. thesis about Mars drilling
instrument design. In a literature part of my thesis I compare
different old drill machines that have flown or existed in concept
level. There have been several drills in space, such as the Luna,
Venera, Apollo, Deep Space 2, Philae SD2, etc.

Now I'm curious - Deep Space 2 had drills? I thought it was a simple
kinetic penetrator...

--
-Andrew Gray

In article ,
Andrew Gray wrote:
...There have been several drills in space, such as the Luna,
Venera, Apollo, Deep Space 2, Philae SD2, etc.

Now I'm curious - Deep Space 2 had drills? I thought it was a simple
kinetic penetrator...

If (dim) memory serves, each penetrator had a little drill that went out
sideways and brought a bit of the surrounding material into the penetrator
for analysis.
--
"Think outside the box -- the box isn't our friend." | Henry Spencer
-- George Herbert |

Harald Kucharek wrote:
Apollo Lunar Surface Drill /ALSD/ Final report (8MB)
http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/ca...1969002958.pdf


Thank you! This was exactly what I was looking for!! Very interesting to
see that the ALSD had electric (input) power of 456 W! Not very suitable
for modern robotic driller instruments...


Matti Anttila
--
http://antti.la/

On Thu, 24 Feb 2005 22:31:47 +0200 (EET), Matti Anttila
wrote:

Thank you! This was exactly what I was looking for!! Very interesting to
see that the ALSD had electric (input) power of 456 W! Not very suitable
for modern robotic driller instruments...

....Yeah, well, whaddya expect from an off-the-shelf Sears Craftsman
rechargeable drill, circa 1967-69? :-)

OM

--

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his country. He won it by making the other | Sergeant-At-Arms
poor dumb ******* die for his country." | Human O-Ring Society

- General George S. Patton, Jr

"Henry Spencer" wrote in message:
If (dim) memory serves, each penetrator had a little drill that went out
sideways and brought a bit of the surrounding material into the penetrator
for analysis.

Yes, that's right.

The primary scientific objectives of the Deep Space 2
(DS2) Mars microprobes were to search for the presence
of water ice in the soil and to characterize its thermal and
physical properties. DS2 penetrators included a small drill,
which would have brought approximately 0.1-gram soil sample
inside the probe. The sample would then be heated in 10 deg C
increments and measurements of the amount of water vapour
released at each stage of heating would be made using a tunable
diode laser, giving information on the water-bearing minerals
within the sample. The tunable diode laser is set so that its
light is at the point in the spectrum where water absorbs light.
When the impact occurs, an accelerometer will measure the rate
at which the probes come to rest. This information will also
be used to determine the hardness of the soil and to determine
possible soil layers at the impact place. The DS2 probe has
temperature sensors, which will estimate the heat conductivity
of the soil. See also:
http://mars4.jpl.nasa.gov/msp98/ds2/tech/forebody.html

The drill has a tiny motor, which will drive a small drill bit
out the side of the probe's forebody. After sample acquisition,
bits of soil engaged by the drill tool will fall into a small
heater cup, which is sealed by firing a pyrotechnic device which
closes a door. The drill mechanics is shown in:
http://mars4.jpl.nasa.gov/msp98/ds2/tech/sample.html
That page also describes some technical details of the drill system.


Matti Anttila
http://antti.la/



"Henry Spencer" wrote in message ...
In article ,
Andrew Gray wrote:
...There have been several drills in space, such as the Luna,
Venera, Apollo, Deep Space 2, Philae SD2, etc.

Now I'm curious - Deep Space 2 had drills? I thought it was a simple
kinetic penetrator...

If (dim) memory serves, each penetrator had a little drill that went out
sideways and brought a bit of the surrounding material into the penetrator
for analysis.
--
"Think outside the box -- the box isn't our friend." | Henry Spencer
-- George Herbert |

In message , Matti Anttila
writes
"Henry Spencer" wrote in message:
If (dim) memory serves, each penetrator had a little drill that went out
sideways and brought a bit of the surrounding material into the penetrator
for analysis.

Yes, that's right.

Snip.

http://mars4.jpl.nasa.gov/msp98/ds2/tech/forebody.html

Very impressive, especially for something that is intended to be dropped
from a great height :-) Thanks. Does anyone know why it failed?
--
Support the DEC Tsunami Appeal http://www.dec.org.uk/.
Remove spam and invalid from address to reply.

"Jonathan Silverlight" wrote
in message ...
Very impressive, especially for something that is intended to be dropped
from a great height :-) Thanks. Does anyone know why it failed?

Did ESA help fund it?