Following the mock crash touchdown, all of the digital units inside SHIELD had been left largely unscathed, with just some superfluous plastic parts broken. And whereas SHIELD did flip after its preliminary influence, the crew suspects this was because of the steel sheet it struck quite than the lander’s design.
It was a promising first step, leaving the engineers pondering what else could be attainable. “We predict we might go to extra treacherous areas, the place we wouldn’t wish to danger making an attempt to position a billion-dollar rover with our present touchdown methods,” stated Lou Giersch, SHIELD’s venture supervisor, in a JPL press release.
The bottom’s the restrict
At present, NASA has a restricted variety of protected martian touchdown zones recognized and obtainable to be used. In any case, they don’t wish to construct a billion-dollar rover and ship it to Mars, just for it to fail its touchdown because of avoidable treacherous terrain.
However with out the necessity for the harrowing (and expensive) entry, descent, and touchdown course of at present used, SHIELD would open new areas of Mars to discover. To not point out, “if we are able to do a tough touchdown on Mars,” stated Velibor Ćormarković, SHIELD crew member, “we all know SHIELD might work on planets or moons with denser atmospheres.”
However that’s some time down the street. For now, the crew’s subsequent step is to design the remainder of the lander in 2023.
