Spirit AeroSystems manufactures PICA for planetary entry thermal protection systems. PICA is a lightweight ablator used in planetary entry heatshields for NASA missions since 1999, including Stardust, Mars Science Lab, OSIRIS REx, and Mars 2020. PICA is also required to protect payloads in the upcoming NF4 Dragonfly Titan Exploration and Mars Sample Return missions. Due to obsolescence of fiber source, new PICA material has been developed using Lyocell, a domestic fiber. The new material, named PICA-D, was developed under funding from NASA-ARC from 2016–2020. Starting in early 2021, Spirit began a qualification effort to enable PICA-D for use on Dragonfly and Mars Sample Return. This involved fabrication of materials in each production unit, followed by acceptance testing, special tests, and arc jet testing conducted by NASA-ARC, as well as the development of a new material specification. The qualification project was successfully completed in May 2022. Since then, Spirit has been fabricating materials for Dragonfly, which will be completed in late 2023. Following this, Spirit will also fabricate PICA-D materials for the Mars Sample Return mission.
Development and Qualification of PICA-D Materials to Support Mars Sample Return and Dragonfly Missions
2023-03-04
3852851 byte
Conference paper
Electronic Resource
English
Mars rover sample return missions
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