Following the mock crash touchdown, all of the digital units inside SHIELD have been left largely unscathed, with just some superfluous plastic parts broken. And whereas SHIELD did flip after its preliminary affect, the workforce suspects this was as a result of metallic sheet it struck moderately than the lander’s design.
It was a promising first step, leaving the engineers pondering what else is perhaps potential. “We expect we might go to extra treacherous areas, the place we wouldn’t wish to threat attempting to position a billion-dollar rover with our present touchdown techniques,” stated Lou Giersch, SHIELD’s mission 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 out there 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 as a consequence of avoidable treacherous terrain.
However with out the necessity for the harrowing (and dear) entry, descent, and touchdown course of presently used, SHIELD would open new areas of Mars to discover. To not point out, “if we will do a tough touchdown on Mars,” stated Velibor Ćormarković, SHIELD workforce 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 workforce’s subsequent step is to design the remainder of the lander in 2023.
