Honeybee Robotics’ Icy Soil Acquisition Device to Touches Down on Mars

May 28, 2008

Honeybee’s Icy Soil Acquisition Device (ISAD) has been deployed for the first time on Mars as part of the Phoenix Mars Mission May 25, 2008.

Honeybee designed, built and tested the ISAD in only 14 months, after the Mars Phoenix mission’s science payload team determined that they needed a vast improvement on the method of gathering samples from the strongest icy soil targets anticipated at the landing site.

The Phoenix Mars Mission landed in the Martian arctic on May 25 to investigate the water ice below its surface. The mission’s goal is twofold: to add to the growing body of knowledge of the history of water on Mars, and to determine if the Martian arctic soil could support life. The ISAD plays a critical role in accomplishing these goals by serving as the primary means of acquiring the samples necessary to make these assessments.

Honeybee Robotics Awarded NASA SBIR Phase II Funds to Further Develop BLDC High-Temperature Motor & Resolver

November 20, 2007

Honeybee Robotics continues to develop extreme high-temperature motors for possible use on future Venus surface missions. The two types of motors under development are a Switched Reluctance Motor (SBIR Phase II ends by November 30th), and the new DC Brushless Motor with resolver (awarded Phase II in October 2007).

All materials and components of both motors are rated above 460°C.

The goal of development is to achieve a comprehensive TRL 6 with both efforts, through extensive testing at Venus temperature and pressure. The switched-reluctance motor, which operates without permanent magnets and has been demonstrated to operate for more than two hours at 460°C, will be mission ready by early 2008 and the brushless motor will be mission ready before the next New Frontiers AO release.

Like the switched reluctance motor, the brushless motor is expected to operate indefinitely at Venus surface conditions. This allows for major restructuring of traditional Venus surface exploration scenarios and provides NASA with a suite of possible actuators for its missions. With accompanying high-temperature bearing development, surface operations are limited only by available power. Scalable high temperature motor and bearing developments allow for creation of long lasting sample acquisition systems, booms, robot arms and even mobility systems.

Honeybee Robotics Receives Five NASA SBIR Phase I Awards

November 19, 2007

Honeybee Robotics Spacecraft Mechanisms Corporation announces that it has been awarded five Phase One Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) grants from NASA.

“Honeybee continues its strong support of planetary exploration technologies through its work with JPL with three awards in the areas of surface and subsurface robotic exploration and sampling,” said Stephen Gorevan, Honeybee’s Chairman. Honeybee enhances its leadership in the fields of Mars and lunar drilling with a project to experimentally study the optimal techniques for drilling one to three meters into the most challenging rock, soil and icy mixtures and another project to improve on mechanisms for collecting samples from these targets.

In conjunction with JPL, Honeybee will also be developing a dust-tolerant end-of-arm electromechanical coupler for change-out of tools and instruments for future rovers and landers. This enables more functionality from increasingly size and mass constrained manipulators.

Through its Phase One effort with Ames Research Center, Honeybee will continue to develop Honeybee’s 3DML; a small-envelope, high-performance scanning LIDAR (LIght Detection and Ranging) system, geared primarily towards mobile robot navigation, and secondarily to site inspection and survey.

For Glenn Research Center, Honeybee will study techniques for mitigating the effects of very harsh lunar dust on future Moon surface systems which may involve erectable structures, diverse EVA-compliant tools, EVA-to-rover or EVA-to-robot interfaces, and other in-situ assembly or interconnection activities.

he company was also awarded two NASA SBIR Phase Two grants three weeks ago, one which will continue development of a high-temperature motor for a Venusian environment (JPL) and the other an excavation mechanism for lunar resource utilization (Kennedy Spaceflight Center). Honeybee’s track record of successful commercialization of SBIRs extends as far as Mars – the Rock Abrasion Tools currently operating on the MER mission started their life in a NASA SBIR Phase One award in 1996.

Rock Abrasion Tool Featured on JPL Mars Rover Home Page

August, 2006

Honeybee's Rock Abrasion Tool, instrumental in the Mars Exploration Rovers Mission, continues to operate on Mars, far exceeding expectations. An image of the RAT, taken on the missions 893rd day, was originally featured on the JPL Rover homepage. The image and accompanying press release shows the RAT covered in a reddish-brown dust after uncovering layers of soil in an attempt to reveal near-surface stratigraphy.

Honeybee to open Houston Office

May, 2006

Following our success at “Honeybee West,” we plan to open an office in Houston. Check back for details, or give us a call for more information.

2007 Phoenix Mission sampling system assigned to Honeybee

December, 2005

The critical task of designing, fabricating, assembling and testing the 2007 Phoenix ice/ice-soil sampling system has been officially assigned by the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory to Honeybee Robotics. The Phoenix Mission is a member of the Scout class of Mars missions; the goal of the mission is to assess potential habitats for water ice and to look for possible indicators of life, past or present. The exact landing site is still to be determined.

Honeybee completes successful test of MARTE drill in Spain

September, 2005

In conjunction with NASA’s Ames Research Center, Honeybee conducted successful testing of their Mars deep drill for the Mars Anthropology Research and Technology Experiment (MARTE) in the Rio Tinto region of southwestern Spain. Drilling reached a depth of 6.057 meters, and according to the project web site, operations ended “achieving and exceeding the success criteria for the drill system.”

You can read more about the MARTE Ames project site, take a look at some pictures during testing, or read more about our drill as well.