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PROJECT 01 / PAYLOAD DESIGN

IPEx Suborbital Flight Experiment

Designed, assembled, and tested two experimental payloads for Blue Origin’s NS-29 mission on the New Shepard rocket.

Experimental payload hardware with electronics, wiring, and a supporting frame
Figure 1. IPEx bucket drum experimental payload inside Blue Origin locker

Purpose

The bucket drum is what IPEx (Infrastructure Pilot Excavator) uses for collecting regolith (moon dirt). Earlier experiments scaled the RASSOR 2 bucket drum design to smaller and larger IPEx sizes to study digging performance, regolith collection, and actuator torque loads. These results helped guide actuator sizing.

A discrete element modeling (DEM) study then compared how different spiral geometries moved regolith through the drum, using total mass collected as the main performance measure. Straight and diverging spiral designs were selected for further testing in the flight experiment.

My Contributions

  • Designed, assembled, and tested two experimental payloads developed to test the excavation tool known as the bucket drum in a lunar environment and support discrete element method (DEM) simulations with test data.
  • Used FEA in Creo Simulate to perform pressure and quasi-static analysis, reduce stress concentrations, and meet the factor-of-safety requirements of Blue Origin’s New Shepard Payload User Guide.
  • Presented the design at a Critical Design Review with KSC chief engineers and a Payload Data Package Review with Blue Origin to proceed to procurement.
  • Led vacuum decay and helium leak testing, random vibration and half-sine burst testing at the KSC Vibration Lab, EMI testing at the KSC Electromagnetics Lab, and mass properties measurements per the New Shepard Payload User Guide.

Read the design overview — page 22

Explore IPEx at NASA

CAD views of the payload assembly, vacuum chamber, bucket drum, and electronics mount
Figure 2. Led mechanical design of payload that included vacuum chamber, mass requirements, launch load strength requirements, and payload integration requirements
Video 1. Led vibration, EMI, thermal, and vacuum decay test campaigns. Clip is from vibration testing at NASA Kennedy Space Center Vibe Lab
Video 2. Experimental results comparing regolith simulant flow through a bucket drum under Earth gravity and simulated lunar gravity aboard Blue Origin’s NS-29 mission.
Four members of the payload team standing in front of a Blue Origin rocket on launch day
Figure 3. Launch Day of our two payloads with the team
Van Horn, TX, 2025
Next project: IPEx TRL 5 Robot