This thesis investigates how silicon carbide (SiC) surface treatments influence bonding to a stiff polyurethane adhesive in tiled ceramic multi-layer armour and whether a stronger ceramic-adhesive interface improves ballistic performance. Stiff adhesives can exhibit poor tile retention during impact leading to poor multi-hit performance. Five cases were compared: solvent-cleaned control, grit-blasting, grit-blasting plus APTMS silane, vacuum air cold plasma, and nano-pulsed laser treatment. Surfaces were characterised by SEM, XPS, water contact angle, and confocal microscope roughness measurements, then evaluated using symmetric SiC-SiC double cantilever beam (DCB) tests and single-hit ballistic testing using the residual energy method (REM) and a post-failure multi-hit failure mode analysis. Plasma and laser treatments strongly increased the wettability, while grit-blasting increased roughness and silane introduced a new coupling chemistry. DCB peak loads observed showed notable increases relative to the control, with the highest values for grit-blasting plus silane, and grit-blasting. The multi-hit failure mode analysis showed the grit-blasted plus silane treatment most effectively reduced the ceramic-adhesive interface failure, whereas the laser treatment performance was limited by a weak secondary interlayer. Overall, the grit-blasting plus silane treatment seemed to offer the most substantial improvement to ballistic performance.

The Mars Sample Return (MSR) mission is a collaboration between NASA and ESA with the aim of retrieving the Martian rock samples gathered by the Perseverance Rover and sending them back to Earth for further study. This report outlines the design of a Mars Ascent Vehicle (MAV) and a Sample Return Lander (SRL) for this mission, with the additional consideration that in-situ resource utilization will be performed. This means that while on Mars, carbon dioxide will be captured, and converted into liquid oxygen and liquid carbon monoxide to be used as propellants. Here one trades off a lower mass of propellant to be brought, with a larger mass of additional systems for propellant generation. This has the potential to bring net mass benefits to the mission, hence justifying a study of its feasibility.