JPL Materials

On our visit to JPL on Wed. 1/19, we visited the Materials Engineer Eric Oakes. Eric is also part of the Materials Testing & Composite Fabrication Group. To be frank it was awesome! We got to see and touch many of the materials that went into building the new Mars rover, Curiosity. All of the materials used are chosen for their functionality. They are the strongest materials with the lightest weight, in order to be cost-effective, as well as durable.
The most interesting material, for me, would be aerogel; it is a solid porous structure made by removing the liquid from a silicon based gel in a process called supercritical drying (like freeze drying), and replacing the liquid with a gas. This material provides excellent insulation and is perfect to protect in interior electronics of not just the rovers but for many other missions as well. Unfortunately, because of its properties, no one other than the employees contracted through JPL are allowed to handle it. :(
The good news is that we got to touch all of the other materials. Usually when people think of graphite they just think of pencils and drawing, but it is actually a very popular industrial material for JPL. They are able to shape pieces of graphite over aluminum madrals in a machine called an autoclave to custom form the housings for the electronics and robotics systems on the rover. (An autoclave is essentially a giant oven in which you can adjust the pressure as well as the temperature.)
Formed in a similar way is astroquartz, which is a quartz fiber products made from high purity quartz crystals. This material is used, not just for its structural properties, but it also helps to transmit microwaves. Astroquartz is also usually accompanied with copper, which is another great conductor. These materials go primarily to constructing the various antennae of the craft.
For wall strength of the belly pan and other removable wall components, the interior structures are made of honeycomb, usually made of paper, or aluminum, then fixed to a sheet of aluminum on either side to create a wall.
As for the adhesives, mostly resins, and epoxy that have been modified for space temperatures are used.
I could probably go on and on and on....
This visit was so fascinating, I wish we had one more day.