 DIRT-TO-DATA INTEGRATED DRILLING TESTS AT RIO TINTO. B. Glass1, D. Bergman1, B. Yaggi2, A. Dave1, V. Parro3, C. Stoker1. 1NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA 94305, USA, Email: brian.glass@nasa.gov, 2Honeybee Robotics, Pasadena, CA 91103, USA, 3Centro de Astrobiologia, 28850 Torrejón de Ardoz, Spain.  Abstract: The Icebreaker-3 1m-class planetary prototype drill was tested in 2015 with a full-scale  Mars lander mockup at the analog site at Rio Tinto, Spain, (with sample transfer arm and the Signs of Life Detector (SOLID) prototype life-detection instrument). Tests successfully demonstrated that the drill sample (cuttings) was handed-off from the drill to the sample transfer arm and thence to the on-deck instrument inlet where it was taken in and analyzed ("dirt-to-data"). Introduction: The proposed "Icebreaker" mission (Fig. 1) would be a return to the Mars polar latitudes first visited by Phoenix in 2007-08 [1]. Given the hard icy layers and perchlorates found there, Icebreaker is based on the Phoenix/InSight spacecraft bus but would instead carry an automated 1m rotary-percussive drill, a sample transfer arm, and non-pyrolytic instruments capable of detecting organics in the presence of perchlorates. Looking for organics, biomarkers and signs of past or extant life in the Mars arctic will require sample acquisition there below the desiccated and irradiated surface, and through the hard ice layers that Phoenix encountered. A decade of evolutionary development by NASA of integrated automated drilling and sample handling, at analog sites and in test chambers, has made it possible to go deeper through hard rocks and ice layers [2]. The latest Icebreaker-3 drill (Fig. 2) has been previously tested with a Phoenix mockup and at the Haughton Crater Mars-analog site in the Arctic (with sample transfer arm) and in a Mars chamber, with successful sample acquisition under automated control [3]. Unlike terrestrial drills, Mars exploration drills must work dry (without drilling muds or lubricants), blind (no prior local or regional seismic or other surveys), and light (very low downward force or weight on bit, and perhaps 100W available from solar power).  Given the lightspeed transmission delays to Mars, an exploratory planetary drill cannot be controlled directly from Earth. Drills that penetrate deeper than a few cm are likely to get stuck if operated open-loop (the MSL drill only goes 5cm, and the MER RATs 5mm by comparison), so some form of drill automation is required [4].  Drilling Approach: The Icebreaker-3  (IB-3) rotary-percussive drill, completed in June 2014, was 3-5x less massive than earlier Mars drill prototypes [3]. Power consumption was 30-40 W, 200W max during 5-10 min drilling sequences.  It was tested in August 2014 at the Haughton Crater analog site in the Canadian Arctic, running automated drilling sequences. IB3 drilled 5m, in six boreholes, and with sufficient power (torque) and shaft stiffness to break and penetrate hard rock and ice-consolidated material. IB-3 drilled 2m in ice or ice-consolidated material. Unlike prior prototypes, IB-3 drilled rapidly and experienced almost no fault conditions [3].  Fig. 1. Icebreaker mission concept would return to the northern Mars polar latitudes visited by Phoenix. Testing: In June 2015 the IB-3 drill was then deployed to the Rio Tinto, Spain Mars-analog site together with a robotic arm (for sample transfer), a fullscale lander deck and the operational Signs of Life Detector (SOLID) prototype instrument [5]. Fig. 2 shows IB-3 deployed over the deck alongside the integrated sample transfer arm.  The functional SOLID instrument prototype is the black box mounted on the deck in Figure 2 behind the arm and drill.  Fig. 2. IB-3 drill tested with SOLID instrument (black case) and sample transfer arm at Rio Tinto in July 2015. Drilling was conducted adjacent to a low-Ph acidic stream (seen in the upper left of Fig. 2), characteristic of those where extremophiles have been typically observed at the Rio Tinto site. IB-3 mechanical failures and software control issues caused frequent drilling aborts and faults. The IB-3 torque motor failed at 68 cm depth in the first borehole on 3 July 2015, shown in Fig. 3. Making field repairs, the drill's spare primary torque motor could not penetrate rocks or consolidated layers, and was only able to drill 2.4m total in five holes. However, while this limited the sampled depths to <60cm, it did not prevent the integrated system tests from the lander deck.    Fig. 3. IB-3 motor failure at 68 cm depth of the first borehole in Rio Tinto. Results: The primary objective of the 2015 Rio Tinto tests, however, was to demonstrate integrated science sampling and analysis, and the reduced drill performance was adequate to do this successfully. Interoperability testing with the drill, sample transfer arm, and SOLID instrument on the lander deck at Rio Tinto demonstrated that sample (drill cuttings) was handed-off from the drill to the sample transfer arm and thence to the SOLID inlet port (so-called "dirt-todata" from  [6]) whereupon analysis of the sample was accomplished.  The initial dirt-to-data demonstration is in Fig. 4, where the bottom of the hole was reached at about 3 cm depth and the drill proceeded until a binding fault at just over 8cm.  The cuttings were automatically deposited in the transfer arm's scoop, which in turn moved up and over and dumped them into SOLID's intake funnel.   Samples acquired robotically from the drill down to 20 cm depth were analyzed by SOLID. Fig. 5 shows the bioassay summary results with the dirt-to-data SOLID results shown in red at the right of the 0-13cm and 13-20cm depth ranges.  For the sample acquired through drilling in Fig. 4, SOLID detected acidithiobacillus and unspecified actinomycetales.  Fig. 4. Dirt-to-data: Shallow drilling leads to sample robotically provided to the SOLID instrument. Conclusions: Tests in Rio Tinto in 2015 successfully demonstrated that the drill sample (cuttings) was handed-off from the drill to the sample transfer arm and thence to the on-deck instrument inlet where it was taken in and analyzed ("dirt-to-data"). This demonstrates a subsurface sample acquisition and bioanalysis capability that is significant for future Mars astrobiology missions. References: [1] McKay, C., et al, (2013) Astrobiology 13(4). [2] Glass, B. et al, (2014) J. Field Robotics 31(1). [3] Glass, B., et al, (2015) LPSC XLVI. [4] Glass, B. et al. (2008) Astrobiology 8. [5] Parro, V. et al, (2011) Astrobiology 11(10). [6] Dave, A., et al, (2013) Astrobiology 13(4).  Fig. 4. Bioassay results from sample analysis from the 2015 tests at the Rio Tinto site. Red text indicates dirt-todata results from the SOLID instrument from drillprovided automated sample transfer.   
