?
HOW IT’S COATED
Painting Cars for Mars DC Agle Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena CA – United States
agle@jpl.nasa.gov
What does NASA do to get a rover ready for Mars? JPL’s paint shop does a thousand different paint jobs a year. And while every piece of spacecrafts that comes through the shop is important, one headed for the Red Planet adds a little extra oomph. After four-and-a-half months and a painstaking work of masking and coating, the Perseverance rover was ready for its mission to the Mars. This is the story of how it was built and coated.
“W
e do a thousand different
In mid-April 2018, more than 20 freshly-
Each hole in Mars 2020’s chassis began its life
paint jobs a year at JPL, from
machined, large, shiny chunks of 7050 and
as a hand-drilled pilot hole. Next, a larger bit is
components as small as a pill
7075 aluminium that would make up the
introduced to expand the hole slightly. Then a
to entire spacecraft fuselages,” said John
primary structure of the chassis were collected
final drilling of the same hole takes place.
Campanella, coating expert at NASA’s Jet
in a clean room in Building 18 at JPL, along
“We drill holes in steps because it gives us
Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.
with about a hundred smaller secondary parts.
the best chance to catch any errors, stresses
“I have worked on the first Mars rover
Over the following four-and-a-half months,
the metal less, and the increments make
Pathfinder, the Deep Impact mission, GRAIL,
Mars 2020 engineers and technicians planned,
it easier to drill by hand,” said Pakbaz. “It’s
Juno and Cassini, and I think my paint is just
measured, examined, consulted, drilled and
detailed work and at times can be tedious, but
about everywhere in the solar system. When
fastened until those many parts became a
everyone knows what is at stake.”
we finished off the Mars 2020 chassis, we had
single Mars rover chassis.
to get everything as close to perfect as we can
“The plan called for 610 rivets, 730 washers,
Prep Work
get it.”
644 nuts and 964 mechanical fasteners to
At the end of 5,000 engineering hours of
While there are thousands of steps that could
hold the rover chassis together,” said Stephen
assembly, involving more than 3,000 drillings
be chosen to start a story about producing an
Pakbaz, lead engineer for the Mars 2020
and well beyond a thousand rivet and fastener
SUV-sized, nuclear-powered six-wheel-drive
chassis assembly. “That means there are well
applications, the rover’s chassis was complete.
vehicle for the Red Planet, we will begin ours
over 1,000 holes in the Mars 2020 rover. But
But it still was not ready for the paint guns of
four-and-a-half months before Campanella
in almost all cases we don’t just drill once
Campanella’s team. There are locations on the
and his colleagues trained their highly-trained
for each hole; we drill three or more times -
rover’s chassis where paint is strictly verboten
paint guns on the rover.
entirely by hand.”
- places where electronics boxes have yet to
© NASA/JPL-Caltech
12
N. 71 - SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2021 - international PAINT&COATING magazine
