Research of Reinforcement Deployment Mechanism of Automatic Sampler for Lunar Sample Return Mission

Abstract

Chang’E-5 detector has successfully completed the lunar sample return mission, and accomplished the first extraterrestrial object drilling sampling detection of China. The deploying process is a key point for the whole mission and the design of the deployment mechanism is significantly important for the system. Compared to traditional deployment, low gravity surface operation and heavy load is the characteristics of this mission. In this paper, a design of reinforcement deployment mechanism suitable for lunar low gravity environment, large load condition is proposed. In this scheme, the planetary force augmentation and fulcrum separation method is adopted, the arm of force is introduced to achieve large load driving by small torque, and the design parameters are determined. The performance of the deployment mechanism is vindicated by dynamic simulation analysis and experimental verification. The research results demonstrate that the deployment mechanism can meet the demand of driving large load with small torque. The deployment mechanism designed based on this scheme has been employed by Chang’E-5 detector and performed perfectly on the moon.