Development of Crushable Shock Absorption Structure for OMOTENASHI Semi-Hard Impact Probes

Abstract

The crushable structure realizes not only chuteless landing on the planetary bodies with atmosphere but also on airless ones by absorbing landing shock energy and protects the inner instrument modules against the landing shock within a prescribed deceleration level. The lunar semi-hard landing mission OMOTENASHI proposed by JAXA is selected for launch by NASA SLS in 2018. The present study shows state-of-the-art technology development of the crushable shock absorption structure together with a design example for the small lunar semi-hard impact surface probe of OMOTENASHI.