Collection of Regolith Experiment (CORE) on a Commercial Suborbital Vehicle

Missions to asteroids pose technical challenges unlike those to larger bodies. Dusty regolith under extreme low gravity creates conditions where contact with the surface by manned or unmanned missions stir up dust that may hamper the mission objectives. Also, regolith collection for the purpose of sample return or in-situ analysis may be achieved by a variety of different mechanical designs of a collector mechanism. Both the performance of the collecting mechanism as well as the dust kicked up by contact of the mechanism with the surface needs to be tested under microgravity conditions. Regolith in Earth-based laboratories behaves differently than under microgravity conditions. We intend to test a dusty regolith retrieval mechanism in microgravity conditions on a sub-orbital rocket in order to characterize the issues associated with activities on an asteroid.

Testing the dusty regolith retrieval mechanism technology in microgravity conditions will benefit future, but currently unplanned NASA missions, especially those to asteroids.

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