Qualification Testing of Engineering Camera and Platinum Resistance Thermometer (PRT) Sensors for MSL Project Under Extreme Temperatures to Assess Reliability and to Enhance Mission Assurance

Abstract

Package qualification and verification (PQV) of advanced electronic packaging and interconnect technologies and various other types of qualification hardware for the Mars Exploration Rover/Mars Science Laboratory flight projects has been performed to enhance the mission assurance. The qualification of hardware (engineering camera and platinum resistance thermometer, PRT) under extreme cold temperatures has been performed with reference to various project requirements. The flight-like packages, sensors, and subassemblies have been selected for the study to survive three times (3×) the total number of expected temperature cycles resulting from all environmental and operational exposures occurring over the life of the flight hardware including all relevant manufacturing, ground operations, and mission phases. Qualification has been performed by subjecting above flight-like qual hardware to the environmental temperature extremes and assessing any structural failures or degradation in electrical performance due to either overstress or thermal cycle fatigue. Experiments of flight-like hardware qualification tests are described in this paper.