exploration gear Archives

Drill deployment system from the lander platform. The deployable surface casing in panel (b) provides the top closure of the sealed conduit used for pressure-supported cuttings transport. -- Astrobiology

A Pressure-Supported Pneumatic Architecture for Robust Deep Drilling on Mars: Performance Modeling, Sizing, and Mission Integration.

by Keith CowingJuly 20, 2026July 20, 2026

[Astrobiology] Accessing the martian deep subsurface is a long-standing scientific priority for astrobiology, climate reconstruction, and planetary evolution, yet robotic drilling missions have historically been limited by wellbore instability, loss […]

Imaginary depiction of an astrobiologist using a future STELLA device on a distant habitable world -- Astrobiology.com/Grok INSET: An example STELLA is shown here during a summer 2023 field-testing session outside the lab in a meadow on the campus of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/Sophia Rentschler

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Tricorder Tech For Everyone: NASA’s STELLA Open Science Instrument

by Keith CowingJanuary 5, 2026June 26, 2026

Editor’s note: NASA has just authored a paper on a new way for people with a wide variety of interests to use – and build – sensor technology that is […]