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(music throughout)
NASA White Sands is a remote test

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facility that the agency uses
for some of the more dangerous testing

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that is needed to support the NASA
missions.

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The size of the guns,
the biggest gun we have

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is about 225 feet

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and the building itself
is only about 200 feet long.

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So part of the gun
does actually stick out of the building.

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There is a very, very large
project underway right now that started

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not too long ago with the landing
of the Perseverance Rover on Mars.

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I am a systems engineer for the capture
containment and return system.

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This system is the NASA payload
which is basically responsible

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to bring the samples,
the Mars samples back to Earth.

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When I'm standing in is actually called
a hypervelocity test facility.

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It's where we shoot
little projectiles at objects, basically

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as fast as we can achieve on on earth.

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In our case,
we are testing to see what will happen

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to our designs if they were to be impacted

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by a micrometeoroid on the trip
to or from Mars.

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The goal here is to see how
well those materials withstand

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those impacts, to make sure that we don't
lose containment of our sample.

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Hypervelocity guns work in two sections,
which are a two stage light gas gun.

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We pressurized hydrogen in the
first section in the middle of the gun.

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There's a barrel.

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That's where the projectile is held.

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The pressures that are generated from
these guns

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can actually level the building,
and that pressure is suddenly released

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where the projectile is, where the barrel
in the middle of the gun is.

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And then from that point on, there's

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a simulated vacuum which simulates space,

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and then
it is impacted where the target is.

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It's all about the timing.

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You're dealing with about 500
microseconds, for the timing of the event.

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So unlike a traditional firearm,
a lot goes into preparing these guns

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for a shot set up
takes anywhere from an hour to a full day.

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Gunpowder is prepared and loaded by hand.

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We're able to remotely operate
the guns via

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the bunker

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on the count of three,

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three, two, one.

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It's equal to 25 times
faster than a 44 mag.

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The velocities are also like flying
from New York to San Francisco

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in 5 minutes.

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One of the interesting things
that we learn

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is that a massive piece of metal does
not offer the same level of protection

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of really thin pieces of metal,
but stack all together.

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What we are doing is we have very light
layers of material and those layers

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they function to progress,
fully break the particles

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until the very last layer
that receives all the energy from the hit.

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And it stops right there.

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If it wasn't for this study,

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we would be sending up rockets
and satellites and

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pieces of the space station,
not knowing whether they were going

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to protect the astronauts or the equipment
we send up.

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It's a really neat thing
to see when you test something

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and have it correlate
very well back to your your simulations.

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I am super excited to be working this
mission to bring back samples from Mars.

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It is something that has

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never been done before
and we are learning so much from this,

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especially because this Mars is a planet
that we had fascinations for a very,

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very long time.

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So it is

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humbling and a lot a lot of work, right.

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Being here testing things.

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It's it's amazing.