INTRODUCTION
ABOUT SUNSLICER:
SunSlicer is a miniature, low power, versatile, XRAY Spectrometer with many impactful mission possibilities for the Artemis program. SunSlicer is adapted to survive and operate in both a harsh lunar equator environment and in a mobile spacecraft configuration such as the intended Miniature Lunar Rover platform.
HISTORY:
SunSlicer was developed in 2021 as a result of the 2nd phase of the NASA "Honey I Shrunk the NASA Payload" crowdsourcing challenge hosted by HeroX and is an adaption to the lunar rover mounted payload environment of a flight heritage XRAY spectrometer backend concept designed by John Doty (NOQSI Aerospace).
This challenge is NASA's first time utilizing crowdsourcing to develop instruments for the lunar surface.
The initial phase of the challenge in 2020 was an ideation activity, bifurcated into two categories, to solicit concepts for science experiment payloads the size of a thick bar of soap for deployment on miniature lunar rovers, similar in size to a ROOMBA® vacuum cleaning robot. The desire was for payloads that support prospecting for resources that help support a sustained human presence, in addition to payloads that enable lunar science, demonstrate new technologies and/or advance the use of resources found on the moon (in-situ resource utilization, ISRU). HeroX received 132 submissions from 29 countries for Phase 1 and awarded 14 teams.
Team SunSlicer was awarded first place in this 1st phase for the Lunar Environment category for an XRAY Spectrometer payload concept and Heliospheric experiment conceived by Garrett Jernigan to measure Solar Active regions to higher angular accuracy than what is possible with orbital based assets.
NASA then invited Team SunSlicer as well as the other 13 challenge winning teams to submit a grant proposal for the Phase 2 sequel of the competition and was successful in securing a grant to devleop SunSlicer in 2021.
Refer Team for details of the team.
The lunar payload hardware was developed in the Northern California, Sonoma County garage based "Mad Scientist's" lab of "Phil Jobson Consulting". A significant amount of the space flight ready payload was fabricated in that garage including the structural housing on a Tormach 770M vertical CNC machine.
The payload software which included firmware, BLDC motor controller, dashboard and user interface was developed by a distributed team in Sydney Australia, Montreal Canada and San Diego USA. The majority of that development was performed remotely without physically touching the prototype hardware.
Countless volunteers, partner companies and suppliers augmented team SunSlicer with the united goal of a successful lunar space payload program. Team and Partners/Sponsors
3 flight ready SunSlicer payloads were delivered to JPL on Feb 16th, 2022 and NASA subsequently judged the SunSlicer instrument as the 1st ranked payload for the overall challenge of the 3 remaining payload submissions.
NASA is working hard to try and accommodate all 3 teams payloads on upcoming Commercial Lander Payload Services (CLPS) missions of the Artemis program. Winning the challenge does not guarantee that the payload will fly. We will update this website as news of mission accommodation becomes available.
For more information on CLPS:
www.planetary.org/space-missions/clps
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commercial_Lunar_Payload_Services
HEROX CHALLENGE DETAILS:
Phase 1: www.herox.com/NASApayload
Phase 2: www.herox.com/NASAPayload2
SunSlicer is a miniature, low power, versatile, XRAY Spectrometer with many impactful mission possibilities for the Artemis program. SunSlicer is adapted to survive and operate in both a harsh lunar equator environment and in a mobile spacecraft configuration such as the intended Miniature Lunar Rover platform.
HISTORY:
SunSlicer was developed in 2021 as a result of the 2nd phase of the NASA "Honey I Shrunk the NASA Payload" crowdsourcing challenge hosted by HeroX and is an adaption to the lunar rover mounted payload environment of a flight heritage XRAY spectrometer backend concept designed by John Doty (NOQSI Aerospace).
This challenge is NASA's first time utilizing crowdsourcing to develop instruments for the lunar surface.
The initial phase of the challenge in 2020 was an ideation activity, bifurcated into two categories, to solicit concepts for science experiment payloads the size of a thick bar of soap for deployment on miniature lunar rovers, similar in size to a ROOMBA® vacuum cleaning robot. The desire was for payloads that support prospecting for resources that help support a sustained human presence, in addition to payloads that enable lunar science, demonstrate new technologies and/or advance the use of resources found on the moon (in-situ resource utilization, ISRU). HeroX received 132 submissions from 29 countries for Phase 1 and awarded 14 teams.
Team SunSlicer was awarded first place in this 1st phase for the Lunar Environment category for an XRAY Spectrometer payload concept and Heliospheric experiment conceived by Garrett Jernigan to measure Solar Active regions to higher angular accuracy than what is possible with orbital based assets.
NASA then invited Team SunSlicer as well as the other 13 challenge winning teams to submit a grant proposal for the Phase 2 sequel of the competition and was successful in securing a grant to devleop SunSlicer in 2021.
Refer Team for details of the team.
The lunar payload hardware was developed in the Northern California, Sonoma County garage based "Mad Scientist's" lab of "Phil Jobson Consulting". A significant amount of the space flight ready payload was fabricated in that garage including the structural housing on a Tormach 770M vertical CNC machine.
The payload software which included firmware, BLDC motor controller, dashboard and user interface was developed by a distributed team in Sydney Australia, Montreal Canada and San Diego USA. The majority of that development was performed remotely without physically touching the prototype hardware.
Countless volunteers, partner companies and suppliers augmented team SunSlicer with the united goal of a successful lunar space payload program. Team and Partners/Sponsors
3 flight ready SunSlicer payloads were delivered to JPL on Feb 16th, 2022 and NASA subsequently judged the SunSlicer instrument as the 1st ranked payload for the overall challenge of the 3 remaining payload submissions.
NASA is working hard to try and accommodate all 3 teams payloads on upcoming Commercial Lander Payload Services (CLPS) missions of the Artemis program. Winning the challenge does not guarantee that the payload will fly. We will update this website as news of mission accommodation becomes available.
For more information on CLPS:
www.planetary.org/space-missions/clps
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commercial_Lunar_Payload_Services
HEROX CHALLENGE DETAILS:
Phase 1: www.herox.com/NASApayload
Phase 2: www.herox.com/NASAPayload2
NASA QUAD CHART
DESIGN CHALLENGES
• Dust mitigation for a mobile environment with a detector that is readily blinded by an accumulation of dust that would severely attenuate collected XRAY photons
• Creation of a dust mitigation system that is both functional and can survive, for a useful mission window, in the presence of lunar dust simulant, hence actual lunar dust, that is analogous in composition to micro-miniature shards of glass
• Creation from scratch of a drive train and gearbox that achieves extreme amounts of torque multiplication such that a tiny low power actuation motor could be utilized and not violate the small mass, envelope, power requirements of the payload
• Procurement of small quantities of a tiny brushless dc motor that are not readily available and in the worst supply chain management year, 2021, in recent history
• Challenging thermal environment requiring passive thermal management of the payload such that the bolted interface of the XRAY sensor remains below 75C
• Extremely low development budget, hence minimal resources
• Extremely aggressive development timeline
• Extremely small envelope and mass
• Extremely low power budget
• Creation of a dust mitigation system that is both functional and can survive, for a useful mission window, in the presence of lunar dust simulant, hence actual lunar dust, that is analogous in composition to micro-miniature shards of glass
• Creation from scratch of a drive train and gearbox that achieves extreme amounts of torque multiplication such that a tiny low power actuation motor could be utilized and not violate the small mass, envelope, power requirements of the payload
• Procurement of small quantities of a tiny brushless dc motor that are not readily available and in the worst supply chain management year, 2021, in recent history
• Challenging thermal environment requiring passive thermal management of the payload such that the bolted interface of the XRAY sensor remains below 75C
• Extremely low development budget, hence minimal resources
• Extremely aggressive development timeline
• Extremely small envelope and mass
• Extremely low power budget
IMPLEMENTATION FEATURES
• Exceeds with margin all mission requirement derived specifications
• State of the art primary XRAY sensor, 25mm^2 Silicon Drift Detector from AMPTEK
• Extremely low power design
• High performance Spectrometer backend that is extremely quiet with a typical reported energy level noise of only 15eV for a standard deviation with a grounded input.
• Innovative shutter Blade/Filter wheel implemented for Lunar Dust mitigation in a mobile deployment
• Novel 80:1 reduction planetary gearbox in compact, pancake style form factor
• Gear Train total 320:1 reduction
• Reconfigurable and replaceable shutter blade
• Custom motor and gear train
• Custom BLDC motor controller
• Optical encoder used to commutate motor
• Closed loop servo of shutter blade, position known to <8 degrees from cold start
• 550mW nominal power draw from 12V
• 500mA max average current draw when actuating the shutter blade
• Optional soft xray filter such that spectrometer can be pointed directly at sun without overload for heliophysics investigations
• <400 grams
• <100x100x50mm envelope
• Spectrometer backend with flight heritage on NICER, TESS
• TRL7 as pre-qualified in High Vacuum with Thermal Cycle Testing and checkout
• State of the art primary XRAY sensor, 25mm^2 Silicon Drift Detector from AMPTEK
• Extremely low power design
• High performance Spectrometer backend that is extremely quiet with a typical reported energy level noise of only 15eV for a standard deviation with a grounded input.
• Innovative shutter Blade/Filter wheel implemented for Lunar Dust mitigation in a mobile deployment
• Novel 80:1 reduction planetary gearbox in compact, pancake style form factor
• Gear Train total 320:1 reduction
• Reconfigurable and replaceable shutter blade
• Custom motor and gear train
• Custom BLDC motor controller
• Optical encoder used to commutate motor
• Closed loop servo of shutter blade, position known to <8 degrees from cold start
• 550mW nominal power draw from 12V
• 500mA max average current draw when actuating the shutter blade
• Optional soft xray filter such that spectrometer can be pointed directly at sun without overload for heliophysics investigations
• <400 grams
• <100x100x50mm envelope
• Spectrometer backend with flight heritage on NICER, TESS
• TRL7 as pre-qualified in High Vacuum with Thermal Cycle Testing and checkout