Subsurface Access & Sampling
Mini-Corer
Product Features
The Miniature Rock Coring and Rock Core Acquisition and Transfer System (Mini-Corer) was designed as a portion of NASA’s Mars Sample Return Athena Payload, originally scheduled for launch in 2003. It was developed to acquire rock cores for in-situ examination by other instruments, and to cache cores for sample return. The Mini-Corer is capable of obtaining two 25mm long and 8mm diameter cores from a single hole of a strong rock.
The compact, low mass, Mini-Corer can drill 25mm into strong basalt in less than six minutes while consuming under 10 watt-hours of power. The Mini-Corer’s carbide cutting teeth require a minimum of torque, therefore keep the unit's power needs low. The drill has been tested and fares well in the harsh desert environment. Testing indicates that 8mm carbide drill tips start to dull after drilling ten 30mm cores into basalt with a compressive strength of over 100 Mpa.
An engineering model of Mini-Corer was installed on JPL’s field test rover, FIDO, to facilitate basic mission operations testing. This model currently resides at JPL.