Ground Simulation Test of Penetrator for Lunar Soil Exploration

Abstract

The lunar surface is mostly covered with fine-grained powdered regolith. Penetration tests are carried out on the full-scale penetrator penetrating at 100 ~ 260 m/s into three types of simulated lunar soil samples，to study the impact resistance of penetrator structure and scientific devices，the penetration resistance and identification of different cross-sectional structures，and the perturbation intensity after penetration. The test results show that the penetrator structure was intact and worked well under an overload of about 30 000 g. When the penetrator penetrated the simulated sample target of lunar soil without hard layers，the peak value of the overload after filtering was about 1 000 g. When the penetrator penetrated the simulated samples target of lunar rock or water-ice，the overload peak after filtering was more than five times that of lunar soil without hard layers. The missile-borne recorder could identify the layered samples of different strengths; at the end of the trajectory，the granular simulated sample target within about 20 mm from the penetrator showed disturbance and fragmentation，and the median granular size was reduced by about 70% at most. The lunar surface is usually covered by fine-grained powdered regolith and the penetrator can realize subsurface lunar soil detection. The results will provide the reference for the design of detectors in the fourth phase of lunar exploration project.

Keywords

penetrator / lunar soil simulant / water ice / particle breakage