ESA Document - Emits - ESA

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• Time of quarantine- remainder of Mars orbit period
• Sealing Verification Levels 1 & 2 (& 3)
i. Inert gas pressurisation
ii. Pressure and gas concentration monitoring
HMM
Assessment Study
Report: CDF-20(A)
February 2004
page 326 of 422
The conclusion that can be drawn from the above discussion is:
1 Passing the samples into the habitable volume does not create any technological difficulties
(beyond those already known) or pose a significant contamination risk.
2 Further characteristics are:
• Early sealing of samples in transport containers
• Early verification of sample containment (before leaving Mars)
• Ability to replace samples (collect more) if an individual Bio-lock containment
cannot be verified at Level 1 (due to limitation of the number of bio-locks, other
samples may have to be sacrificed)
• Multi-level (stepwise contamination mitigation approach) sealing can be applied
with individual level sealing verification
• No EVA required beyond those for collecting the samples
• Easy transfer of samples between vehicles
• Minimal contamination risk to habitable volume
The baseline method for handling the samples will therefore be to transport them inside the
habitable volume by using appropriate sealed containers.
4.3.9.2.3 Sample and container volumes (estimated mass)
The EVA canister volume (surface and atmospheric samples) shall be 147 cm 3 - circular
container of external dimension diameter 55 x 100 mm
The number of individual samples per type is assumed as follows:
Surface samples- x60, Typical individual sample volume 147 cm 3 .
Atmospheric samples- x24, Typical individual sample volume 147 cm 3 .
Subsurface samples- x20- Typical individual sample volume 9.72 cm 3 .
Rocks- two canisters of internal volume 5890.5 cm 3
Assuming a sample mass density of 3100 kg/m 3 , this surface sample volume of 20 617 cm 3
equates to a mass of 63.9 Kg (assuming 100% packing density and realising in addition that the
density is only taken as an informative number on the upper bound). The total volume of
atmospheric sample is 3534 cm 3 . The total volume of subsurface samples is 194 cm 3 , mass
estimate 0.6 kg.
All mass estimates performed below will consider simple containers. This is deemed adequate to
assess the mass impact at this stage.