Integrated Silicon Carbide Electronics for Venus Surface Actuation

NASA has invested significant time and money in developing high-temperature technologies for Venus surface exploration. Due to the harsh environment outside an insulated lander body (~462deg;C, 92 bar pressure, CO2 atmosphere), conventional, high-TRL components and materials will not survive, even for a short duration mission lasting only a few hours.To meet this need, Ozark IC has worked with NASArsquo;s JFET-R integrated circuit technology (under license since 2016) to provide sensing and actuation solutions that can survive in this harsh environment. nbsp;Honeybee Robotics (HBR) has built and tested several motor, sensor and gearbox prototypes for a Venus rock sampling drill. The drill includes two BLDC motors to drive the auger and percussion mechanisms and a stepper motor to drive the drill feed stage.In Phase I of this effort, Ozark IC showed, through a laboratory demonstration, that NASArsquo;s JFET-R technology can continuously run a stepper motor for over 1,000 hours of operation at 470oC.nbsp;nbsp;In parallel, Honeybee Robotics demonstrated that its TRL-6 level Venus motors are capable of being used in a stepper configuration to achieve the required auger needs for a Venus drill.What remains for Phase 2 is to fabricate a combined motor control chipset, assemble modules, and demonstrate the combined motor and electronics operating together at the Venus surface temperature.nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;The motor and drive electronics will then be tested at Venus temperature and characteristic measurements including power and torque will be monitored using HBRrsquo;s high temperature motor characterization system.nbsp;nbsp;500 hours of operation is targeted for this effort.