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Collisions Into Dust Experiment on a Commercial Suborbital Vehicle
Completed
TRL 8 (started at 6, targeting 8)
Description
Understanding the behavior of fine particles in dusty environments in response to human and robotic activities is crucial to the success of exploration missions to the Moon, Mars, and especially to small bodies such as asteroids with negligible surface gravity. We propose to perform a low-energy impact experiment to be carried out in a zero-gravity environment using a commercial suborbital vehicle. The experiment is a modified version of the Collisions Into Dust Experiment (COLLIDE) that was flown previously on two space shuttle missions. Modifications to the experiment include individualized vacuum chambers and higher quality video data. The experiment has also been modified for autonomous operation on a commercial suborbital vehicle.
Nanorocks as a follow up onboard the ISS smallsat follow up from the ISS experiment
Benefits
The experiments using this technology will simulate the kinds of disturbances to dusty planetary regolith that accompany both manned and unmanned exploration, which will eventually enable an optimized design of hardware and operational procedures on the surfaces of airless bodies with near-zero gravity.
Details
| Technology area | Exploration Destination Systems > Mission Infrastructure, Sustainability, and Supportability > Particulate Contamination Prevention and Mitigation |
| Program | Flight Opportunities (FO) |
| Lead organization | University of Central Florida, Orlando, FL |
| Start date | 2013-01-03 |
| End date | 2023-01-13 |
Project contacts
Listed on TechPort itself — the most direct way to ask about this specific project.
- Josh Colwell
- E. Todd Bradley
- Todd Bradley
How to get involved
This is a mature technology (TRL 8) — the realistic path in is usually NASA's Technology Transfer Program: licensing an existing NASA patent, or a Space Act Agreement to use NASA facilities/expertise directly. NASA also runs a startup licensing program with no upfront fee for companies formed to commercialize a specific NASA technology.
None of these are guaranteed paths for this specific project — TechPort itself doesn't have an "apply" button. Reaching out to the contact(s) above with a specific question is usually the fastest way to find out what's actually open.