Considerations on a suction drill for lunar surface drilling and sampling: II. experimental tests in vacuum conditions

Drilling devices with the ability to create narrow, but deep, boreholes in a planetary surface are important tools for the exploration of the structure and properties of planetary surface layers. Therefore, they are usually proposed for planetary landers for the Moon, Mars, Venus or small planetary bodies. A method based on the use of a cold gas flow for ejecting debris particles from the borehole has recently been suggested and investigated theoretically (K?mle et al. in Acta Geotech 3:201–214, 2008a). The current paper reports on laboratory experiments designed to validate this method under vacuum or low pressure conditions. Two different sample materials were used: (1) glass beads in the sub-millimeter size range, and (2) the certified lunar analog material JSC-1A, a finely crushed basaltic rock. For both materials, the suction process for removing the particles from a simulated borehole worked well and with a moderate gas consumption.