COLLIDE 3

COLLIDE-3 is a Suborbital Experiment that consists of one (1) Impactor Box System (IBS) contained within an aluminum vacuum chamber, a video recording system, and a logic unit. These components are all mounted to an aluminum baseplate. The experiment is performed with pre-determined impact parameters (target material, impactor mass, and impactor velocity). The experiment is fully automated using an accelerometer and an internal timed circuitry system.

The IBS consists of a launcher system, a target tray, and a lighting system (shown on the left). A spherical impactor is propelled at low-speeds into a regolith reservoir via a spring-loaded launcher activated by a shape-memory-alloy system. The target tray, orreservoir, is rectangular in shape with dimensions of approximately 11.5 cm x 10.6 cm x 1.9 cm.  The tray is filled with granular material (JSC-1, lunar regolith) prior to impactor launch. The JSC-1 is held in place by a mechanical, sliding door until the experiment is ready to be operated in reduced-gravity conditions. The door consists of Teflon pins that run through door guides and is opened and closed with a digital linear actuator (stepper motor). An aluminum vacuum chamber was created for this experiment having dimensions of 30.5 cm x 19.1 x 18.7 cm. The chamber includes 3 ports: electrical, vacuum, and viewing. The electrical port houses an electrical feedthrough through which the circuitry logic unit is connected to the IBS. An o-ring face seal is threaded into the vacuum port along with a stainless steel ball valve attached for air removal and to seal the chamber after vacuum pumping.   To video record the experiment, a BK7 optical glass viewport was installed.

Videos

Video data is recorded through the viewing porthole using a Prosilica GE 1050 GigE Vision Camera by Allied Vision Technologies. This camera has a pixel resolution of 1024 x 1024 and is capable of recording at 59 frames per second. A flat mirror mounted inside the IBS provides an orthogonal view of the impact. Illumination of the target area is provided by an internal array of LEDs.

Short video clip showing the basic set up of the Impactor Box System.

Short video of a COLLIDE collision into JSC Mars1

Short video of a COLLIDE collision into Sand.