NASA permanent tires: available on all terrain, withstands temperatures of -200 degrees Celsius

Not only for Mars, this tire is likely to be used on Earth itself.

harshly corrode his tires - a one-ton robot system, powered by nuclear power, is tasked with exploring the new red land - with a slightly dizzying speed. Only after a year of travel, at a rate of only 0.14 / h - 0.04m / s, but the Martian rock had poked many big holes in Curiosity's tires.

NASA has been looking for ways to prevent this from happening in the future: they redesigned the tire, so that by the time we conquer Mars, we have a long-lasting tire to travel.

Almost permanent tires made of woven metal thread.

They created an almost permanent tire, made of woven metal thread , capable of "remembering" its best shape so that it could return to its own shape, after being subjected to External impact elements distort or distort.

Research and design of this special tire was conducted at NASA's Glenn Research Center located in Cleveland, Ohio. Engineer Colin Creager and his colleagues weave metal - steel springs to create that tire. It is able to grip soft and sandy soil very well, withstands heavy weight. However, there is another problem.

"We only encounter one problem, these tires are always concave after a period of use," said engineer Creager.

The concave metal will be difficult to return to its original shape.

Then he met Santo Padula, a material research scientist. Creager received advice that he should use a shape-memory alloy - a super-elastic metal that could return to its original shape after deforming.

"From that point on, we started to cooperate . to create a new tire, a tire that makes us think it will revolutionize tires of other planetary exploration vehicles and even, change new tires even on Earth, " Creager said excitedly.

Driving on the Universe is also difficult to launch

NASA has been researching and developing suitable tires for other planetary travel since the 1960s, since the Lunar Space program began. First, it is the Lunar Roving Vehicle (LRV) , used in the Apollo 16, 16 and 17 missions. Hard metal pieces make tires move easily on the Moon's surface, including Lunar dust. and crushed stone.

Astronaut driving on the Moon.

But the surface of Mars is much more complicated. In order for a vehicle to travel on it, it must satisfy the list of requirements that need to be long and ambiguous as follows:

1. Tires must be able to walk on all terrains : Mars surface is sand, gravel and rocky, small and pointed stone.
2. Vehicles must be light : costing $ 30,000 to land nearly half a kilogram on the surface of Mars, the lighter the car, the less it will take.
3. Time to use is long : solar energy, nuclear energy will be what helps vehicles maintain operation for years, even decades.
4. Can withstand erratic weather : normal rubber tires will not be able to survive in an atmosphere of lack of air, temperatures range from -129 degrees Celsius to 21 degrees Celsius in a short time.

On the Curiosity is a 50cm high tire system, made of aluminum and reinforced with hard metal rings both outside and inside, the tire surface has V-grooves for better road grip, suspension system with spokes. will help the car against strong bumps.

Just one year after Curiosity took over Mars, tires had worries.

But just one year after Curiosity took over Mars, tires had worrisome holes. Today, vehicles must avoid places with small stones to minimize damage, but tires continue to fail over time.

A new tire appears

After years of research, the team decided to use nickel and titanium alloys (NiTi) . The magnetic spring can only be stretched 0.3% (the distance between the atoms in the metal changes) is that it will be permanently indented, not returning to the old shape.

However, NiTi alloy can be stretched 10% and still be able to look old - it has 30 times better elasticity than steel springs.

NiTi alloy can be stretched 10% but still able to return to its original shape.

Research results show that this new tire can load more than 10 times the weight that Curiosity tires can load, operating within the temperature limit of -130 degrees Celsius to 90 degrees Celsius, better sticking to rocks and sand , steep climb better than 23%.

In the most extreme test, on the 10km road full of "difficult" terrain, this tire is still excellently completed. Currently, NASA is building an ultra-cold test room to test tires under low temperature conditions.

The long road ahead

NASA tire test.

In the next five years, NASA will launch on Mars the ship Mars 2020 - similar to Curiosity but heavier. According to Mr. Creager, sadly, this great tire may not be applicable to Mars 2020 due to the time being too short and limited. Tires have to be tested a lot, very much, but the deadline for launching ships is already over.

The good news for us on Earth, is that this tire can be applied right on the surface of our planet: the research team is working with Goodyear - an American tire manufacturing company, founded. from 1898 - to apply the upper tire to dirt road vehicles.

In the immediate future, it will probably be included in military vehicles, running on rugged and rugged roads. Creager expects that this advanced tire technology could be applied to asphalt cars.