NORCAT vying to be NASA's driller of choice.

• Author: Ross, Ian
• Position: News - Northern Centre for Advanced Technology Inc - National Aeronautics and Space Administration

A Sudbury technology development institute is angling to be NASA's supplier of choice for deep-space drilling should the U.S. space agency opt for below surface sampling for its next major lander mission.

NASA plans to send its largest lander to Mars as part of the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) mission in 2009, and Sudbury's expertise in hard-rock mining could contribute some innovative technology that could play a leading role in searching for signs of life.

Dale Boucher, manager of prototype development at NORCAT, says 2009 stands to be the "first mission of opportunity" for their CanaDrill. He believes they have a "very good chance" of placing a Canadian drill aboard a lander, despite a lack of long-term government commitment to contribute Canadian technology for future Mars missions.

For more than two years, Northern Centre for Advanced Technology Inc. (NORCAT), along with partners Dimatec of Winnipeg and Electric Vehicle Controllers Ltd. of Sudbury, have been developing two drill prototypes for space.

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Jim Richard, vice-president of Electric Vehicle Controllers, views the CanaDrill as a future opportunity to diversify his company's interests. His company specializes in electric drives and motors for underground mining locomotives, and he has been a project joint-venture partner with NORCAT since the beginning.

One drill version, a 150-kg unit, is capable of being mounted on a Mars lander and drilling 10 metres down, while a smaller 4.8-kg lightweight mini-version, known as the CanaDrill, designed for a rover vehicle, is capable of drilling two metres.

Their progress has been observed by officials from NASA and the Jet Propulsion Lab in California.

Unlike conventional, hydraulic-driven mining equipment, NORCAT developed a fully-autonomous, all-electric unit designed to work in the vacuum of space.

On a scale of nine levels of space readiness, Boucher and his technical staff have taken the CanaDrill to level four - meaning proof of concept stage - and have tested the unit outside their Sudbury labs on the hardest and oldest rock in the world.

The next step is to make the CanaDrill space-ready, a process they will collaborate on with MD Robotics, the makers of the Canadarm.

But they are not alone in...