A pre-treating device for drilling sample in lunar exploration

China is launching the lunar exploration mission, namely "Chang'e" project. In the third phase of the project, a probe will be sent to the moon to acquire the lunar regolith through automated drilling device. The drilling sample is expected to be sealed into a storing container which will be brought back to the earth by return capsule. Drilling sample should be pulled out from the drill stem and pre-treated into a device which will be transferred to the storing container together with the sample. Due to the harsh working environment and limited power and mass resources, the pre-treating device for drilling sample should be reliable, lightweight, and good environmental-adaptability. This paper proposed a kind of pre-treating device for the drilling sample. The design details of the device was discussed. Experiments were conducted to verify the design concept of the pre-treating device.