Summary Draft 02 of The ExoMars Drill Unit

According to European Space Agency (2019), the ExoMars drill unit is devised to obtain core soil specimens up to a depth of two metres in an array of soil samples on Mars, and transfer them to the "inlet port" of the "Rover Payload Module". Based on the report from Magnani et al.(2010), the ExoMars drill unit comprises three predominant features, the drill unit, the positioner, and the electronics segment (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:

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

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