Case Study: JPL achieves lunar-night-ready seismic instrument performance with Quartus Engineering

JPL advances lunar seismic suite over 2 years with Quartus Engineering

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) faced significant structural challenges in developing the Farside Seismic Suite (FSS), a seismic instrument designed to operate through the harsh lunar night on a NASA lunar lander. The instrument's unique hypercube architecture, necessary for thermal isolation, created unconventional load paths and required custom isolation to protect sensitive components from dynamic launch loads. JPL partnered with Quartus Engineering to address these complex structural and dynamics issues.

Quartus Engineering served as the primary structural analyst for over two years, providing a comprehensive solution. Their work included developing and correlating a system-level structural finite element model, conducting stress, buckling, and random vibration analyses, and designing a specialized isolation system. Quartus also provided critical support through prototype vibration testing, modal testing, and detailed nonlinear contact analyses, ensuring the FSS instrument could survive the extreme conditions of launch and lunar operation.

Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL)