The Specialized Penetrometer Instrument: SAMPLR and Beyond

The sample acquisition, morphology filtering, and probing of lunar regolith (SAMPLR) payload is a robotic arm and instrument suite that are manifested on Masten Mission One, the commercial lunar payload services (CLPS) mission slated to fly to the south pole of the Moon in November of 2023. SAMPLR is a collaboration between Maxar Technologies, NASA's Goddard Spaceflight Center, and the Colorado School of Mines Center for Space Resources as part of NASA's lunar science and instrument technology payload (LSITP) program. One of the instruments in the SAMPLR suite is a specialized penetrometer. This specialized penetrometer is a lightweight and relatively simple instrument that provides a large amount of useful in situ geotechnical data. The SAMPLR penetrometer will be used to aid in the determination of geotechnical properties and the characterization of lunar regolith. The penetrometer can also assist in identifying the presence and concentration of ice in lunar regolith. A catalog of specialized penetrometer data is being developed at the Colorado School of Mines in support of the SAMPLR mission. This paper will provide an overview of the specialized penetrometer instrument on the SAMPLR mission along with penetrometer operations, data analysis, and representational results.