Subsurface Access & Sampling
Mars Deep Drill / DAME / MARTE
Product Features
Honeybee has designed and built three 10m-class drills for testing in Mars analog environments. Building on our experience first with the Mars Deep Drill and with continued support from NASA and the Ames Research Center, we have been advancing the capabilities of automated deep drilling technology.
The design of the MARTE (Mars Analog Rio Tinto Experiment) drill employs the ability to autonomously connect drill string segments, as well as break-off, retrieve, and handoff core samples. It also allows for power and data transfer across the interface for imbedded instrumentation. It was sucessfully tested in 2004 in the Rio Tinto desert of Spain.
The DAME (Drilling Automation for Mars Exploration) drill was designed and tested (on Devon Island in the Canadian arctic) with a focus on autonomous executive-level drill control and diagnostic development with down-hole sensing capabilities.
Throughout the development of these drills, Honeybee has also been able to design, test, and improve upon a variety of drill tips and augers.