Mars Ice Drill

Abstract

Mankind has been looking toward space as the next frontier and interplanetary travel for decades.  However, in order to make this great leap man must leave behind several essentials; the most important of which is water. A breakthrough was made when large deposits of ice were found on Mars leading to the future aspiration of human settlement on the planet. The Mars Ice Drill is a system designed to penetrate the crust of Mars, heat the ice that lies beneath, and pump the resulting water back to the surface.  First, the system will be anchored to the surface of Mars and the drill will be operated remotely from a safe distance. The operator will activate the drill and the z-translation motor, which will drop the drill carriage and allow the drill to excavate into the crust. Once the final depth is reached, the carriage will be raised and the x-translation motor will align the extracting unit with the hole. The carriage will then be dropped again, plunging the extractor into the hole. Then, power will be applied to a heating element mounted to the extracting tube, which will then melt the ice. At this point a pump will extract the water out of the newly formed well, bringing it back to the surface. With this system, water may be analyzed for quality and impurities and subsequently treated for consumption by teams conducting missions on Mars.