A proposed alternative design for the balloon- borne ground-sampling system described in the immediately preceding article would not rely on free fall to drive a harpoonlike sample-collecting device into the ground. Instead, the harpoon-like sample-collecting device would be a pyrotechnically driven, tethered projectile.

A Gun Aimed Downward From the Top of a Tripod would fire a tethered projectile into the ground to collect a sample when all three feet of the tripod simultaneously touch the ground.
The apparatus would include a tripod that would be tethered to the gondola. A gun for shooting the projectile into the ground would be mounted at the apex of the tripod (see figure). The gun would include an electronic trigger circuit, a chamber at the breech end containing a pyrotechnic charge, and a barrel. A sabot would be placed in the barrel just below the pyrotechnic charge, and the tethered projectile would be placed in the barrel just below the sabot. The tripod feet would be equipped with contact sensors connected to the trigger circuit.

In operation, the tripod would be lowered to the ground on its tether. Once contact with the ground was detected by the sensors on all three tripod feet, the trigger circuit would fire the pyrotechnic charge to drive the projectile into the ground. (Requiring contact among all three tripod feet and the ground would ensure that the projectile would be fired into the ground, rather than up toward the gondola or the balloon.) The tethered projectile would then be reeled back up to the gondola for analysis of the sample.

This work was done by Jack Jones, Wayne Zimmerman, Jiunn Jenq Wu, Mircea Badescu, and Stewart Sherrit of Caltech for NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. NPO-44445



This Brief includes a Technical Support Package (TSP).
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Tethered Pyrotechnic Apparatus for Acquiring a Ground Sample

(reference NPO-44445) is currently available for download from the TSP library.

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