Landing and Mobility Test Facility (LAMA)

Technical Description

MOVE-sea floor vehicle (MARUM Bremen) at mobility tes in LAMA

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Lander Engineering Model after drop test. Inclined Plane as well as obstacles can be generated in LAMA

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The Philae-Lander of the comet mission Rosetta at a coupled landing test at LAMA

The Landing & Mobility Test Facility (LAMA) enables unique worldwide investigations of the landing dynamics of planetary landers. By the use of offloading the weight of the specimen a reduced gravity (Moon, Mars, Asteroids) can be simulated and so a three-dimensional vehicle-ground interaction (stability, rover-traction) can be tested.

The LAMA facility comprises of five major elements, which are a standard type 6-axis industrial robot system used typically for factory automation purpose, a suspension device to mount rover or lander, a controller to set up, control and maintain the experiment conditions and a 10 m x 4 m soil bin containing the planetary soil simulant.

Applications

Investigations of landing system-surface-interaction of scaled and unscaled Lander up to 500 kg
Footpad-soil-interaction for single landing legs
Vehicle-soil-interaction for rover
Wheel-soil-interaction for single wheels

Measured variables

Forces
Torques
Position
Attitude
Velocities
Rotations
Accelerations
Video signal