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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 areaExploration Destination Systems > Mission Infrastructure, Sustainability, and Supportability > Particulate Contamination Prevention and Mitigation
ProgramFlight Opportunities (FO)
Lead organizationUniversity of Central Florida, Orlando, FL
Start date2013-01-03
End date2023-01-13

Project contacts

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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.

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