Microgravity coring: A self-contained anchor and drill for consolidated rock

The Microspine Drill, a self-contained anchor and rotary percussive drill, is presented. The Microspine Drill can core in an inverted orientation into consolidated rock, a harder-than-zero-g proof of concept. The anchor extends the use of mi-crospines to microgravity environments. Microspines, originally developed for climbing robots, use arrays of hooks with passive suspension structures to opportunistically grasp rough surfaces and share loads across many contacts. Utilizing radial arrays and hierarchical compliance, this new system creates omnidirectional anchors. Prototypes have demonstrated anchoring strengths of >;155 N tangent to, >;150 N at 45° to, and >;180 N normal to the rock surface. Using a weight-on-bit of ~60N, 20 mm diameter boreholes were drilled 83 mm deep into vesicular basalt and a'a samples while retaining 12 mm diameter cores. The anchor-drill combination can be used to acquire samples and set up rope networks during future manned missions to near earth objects. The instrument also enables gravity independent sample acquisition from rock surfaces for science missions to asteroids, comets, or the walls and ceilings of lava tubes, craters, caves, and other extreme planetary terrains.