LunarVader: Testing of a 1 meter lunar drill in a 3.5 meter vacuum chamber and in the Antarctic lunar analog site

—In this paper we report on the development of a rotary-percussive sampling drill, LunarVader. The purpose of the drill is to penetrate at least 1 meter in icy-regolith and acquire sub-surface sample for science analysis and for the In Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU). The drill was tested in a lunar analog site of the Ross Island, in the Antarctic and inside the 3.5 meter vacuum chamber in ice-bound JSC-1a lunar soil simulant. In both cases, the drill reached~ 1 meter depth in approximately one hour. The average power ...