292.5 million miles. That’s how far the Perseverance Mars Rover will have traveled by the time it lands on the surface of the red planet on February 18th. The mission of the journey is to help advance NASA's exploration of the habitability of Mars by searching for signs of ancient microbial life. The Planetary Instrument for X-ray Lithochemistry (PIXL) carries a highly sensitive X-ray spectrometer for precision chemical analysis and experiments. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory reached out to the experts at Carpenter Additive to 3D print the housing for this equipment for the journey.
The manufactured parts produced for the Mars mission are extreme examples of lightweighting. We sent replicas of the parts to The Cool Parts Show, an online web channel developed by Additive Manufacturing media and they dedicated an episode to our efforts. Check out the show below:
Manufacturing and qualifying parts for high-profile aerospace and other performance industry components is both complex and challenging. With state-of-the-art manufacturing facilities and equipment dedicated to end-to-end metal additive manufacturing projects, Carpenter Additive worked with NASA/Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL) to provide titanium components for the Mars 2020 Rover on the “Perseverance” mission which launched in July 2020. By February 2021, these components will arrive on Mars to support mission-critical, pioneering measurements of the chemical makeup of our neighboring red planet.
This webinar content is focused on the technical challenges of producing the PIXL assembly which is mounted on a turret at the end of the robotic arm of the Perseverance Rover. Lowering the cantilevered assembly’s mass and designing the parts to facilitate full powder removal from internal channels were key to the mission’s success.
Additive Manufacturing Media Feature
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