Michigan bearings really Dig Martian Muck.Some Muskegon, MI, machining assisted the Phoenix Mars Lander scoop samples of the Martian soil. Reali-Slim thin-section bearings made by the Kaydon Corp. Bearings Division in Muskegon were part of the lander's robotic arm A robotic arm is a robot manipulator, usually programmable, with similar functions to a human arm. The links of such a manipulator are connected by joints allowing either rotational motion (such as in an articulated robot) or translational (linear) displacement. built by Alliance Spacesystems, Pasadena, CA, for NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory “JPL” redirects here. For other uses, see JPL (disambiguation). Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) is a NASA research center located in the cities of Pasadena and La Cañada Flintridge, near Los Angeles, California, USA. which headed the Mars exploration project. The 7' 7" arm is attached to the deck of the lander, with a garden-sized trowel and camera mounted at the end of the arm. The arm is designed to pick up surface samples of the Martian soil and deposit them in the craft for electrochemistry electrochemistry, science dealing with the relationship between electricity and chemical changes. Of principal interest are the reactions that take place between electrodes and the electrolytes in electric and electrolytic cells (see electrolysis), as well as the and conductivity, as well as thermal analysis Thermal analysis is a branch of materials science where the properties of materials are studied as they change with temperature. Techniques include:
The arm has four types of motion: up-and-down, side-to-side, back-and-forth, and rotation. Three of the joints that accomplish these movements feature sets of Kaydon's custom-engineered Reali-Slim thin-section bearings. |
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