Part 2 of 2 parts (Please read Part 1 first)
NASA maintains the Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio to “design and develop innovative technology to advance NASA’s missions in aeronautics and space exploration.” At the Center, there is a fourteen-ton sealed stainless steel tank known as the Glenn Extreme Environments Rig (GEER) which contains a simulation of the conditions of the surface of Venus.
The original purpose of the chamber was to test efficient nuclear-fueled Stirling generators to refrigerate electronics for Venus missions. However, the project was canceled in 2013. A dedicated researcher managed to find funding to continue developing the GEER.
The current version of the chamber can mix eight different gases to simulate the Venusian atmosphere. It can also inject water and other liquids into the chamber to run different tests. It has been used to simulate the effects of the Venusian atmosphere on the types of rocks that are found on the Venusian surface.
NASA is also pioneering a new generation of electronic chips at the GLC that may be able to withstand the conditions on the surface of Venus without being protected by massive shielding. These chips would be able to land on Venus in simple landers and monitor wind, temperature, chemistry, pressure, and seismic waves. Unlike the bulky primitive Soviet landers, these landers would be able to continue to function for months as opposed to hours.
Early this decade, the scientists at the GRC began work on special heat-resistant electronics. They are working with a new type of semiconductor that was originally intended to be able to be placed inside of jet engines. They were contacted by Russian scientists who were working on new pressure vessel probes for exploring Venus. This interaction resulted in igniting interest in the GLC researchers in the exploration of Venus.
The new electronics are based on silicon carbide which is able to function effectively at much higher temperatures than pure silicon. One of the breakthroughs that made the new generation of chips possible was the development of techniques by an electronics company named Cree to create the large flawless silicon carbide crystals that were necessary to build the new chips. One of the GLC breakthroughs was the ability to created layered chips which led to increasing the complexity of possible circuits.
The new chips are very expensive, and the prototype circuits are very simple with few chips when compared to modern computers. But they can function in conditions where modern computers would melt. Recently, a simple twenty-four transistor circuit of the new chips ran successfully for twenty-four days inside the GEER.
Another branch of NASA has been working on the development of a mechanical clock-work lander without any electronics. When they found out about work being done at GLC, they contacted the center to explore the possibility of supplementing the new electronics with their mechanical approach.
If the GLC can perfect the new electronics that they are working on, new missions to Venus may be able to answer many of these questions more quickly and accurately than has been assumed possible. If the three Venus projects submitted for the New Frontiers Mission fail to be funded, the GLC approach to high-temperature electronic chips may be the best bet for future Venus missions.
