Sample Acquisition from Hypothesized Surfaces – The Psyche Prospectors

INSTITUTION

Oregon State University (OSU)

CLASS

Platinum Class (2025 – 2026)

STUDENT TEAM

ACADEMIC GUIDANCE

PROJECT DESCRIPTION

The design package consists of a 1.2 m, 4-axis robotic arm, a custom, polycrystalline diamond (PCD), discrete cutting-edge coring bit, and a sample storage subsystem (SSS) that can hold up to 13 coring bits. The robotic arm, paired with a custom drilling head (coming in a future design package), will be able to select a coring bit from the SSS and use it to sample a surface. The coring bit has an internal core lifting spring that will hold onto a core, allowing it to be stored with the coring bit back into the SSS after extraction. This process can then repeat until all 13 coring bits are used.​

 

View Full Poster

This work was created in partial fulfillment of the Oregon State University Capstone Course “MIME 497/8.” The work is a result of the Psyche Student Collaborations component of NASA’s Psyche Mission (https://psyche.ssl.berkeley.edu). “Psyche: A Journey to a Metal World” [Contract number NNM16AA09C] is part of the NASA Discovery Program mission to solar system targets. Trade names and trademarks of ASU and NASA are used in this work for identification only. Their usage does not constitute an official endorsement, either expressed or implied, by Arizona State University or National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of ASU or NASA.