Summary Draft 01 of The ExoMars Drill Unit

According to ESA, The ExoMars drill unit (2019), the drill was devised to obtain core soil specimens up to a depth of 2 metres in an array of soil samples on Mars.

Based on the report from i-SAIRAS et al.(2010): The ExoMars drill and sampling system comprises three predominant features, the drill unit, the positioner and the electronics unit (p. 222, para. 3). The drill unit contains three extension rods and a drill tool to acquire specimens (p.223, para. 1). All the drill components and rods are housed in a box. The positioner raises the box from a horizontal storage position to an upright position for drilling and to a tilted position to unload the specimens into the sample receptacle (p.223, para. 2). The electrical component, the spectrometer MA_Miss (“MArs Multispectral Imager for Subsurface Studies”) can conduct soil stratigraphy in the visible and invisible spectrums (p.223, para. 3).

Reference:

1. ESA. (2019, September 1). The ExoMars drill unit. https://exploration.esa.int/web/mars/-/43611-rover-drill

2. i-SAIRAS, Magnani, P., Re, E., Senese, S., Rizzi, F., Gily, A., & Baglioni, P. (2010, September). The Drill and Sampling System for the ExoMars Rover. http://robotics.estec.esa.int/i-SAIRAS/isairas2010/PAPERS/044-2769-p.pdf