Production of Mature Highland Lunar Regolith Simulant

As NASA considers manned and/or unmanned return missions to the Moon and beyond, it is imperative that high fidelity lunar soil simulants be developed in order to accurately evaluate the life span and efficiency of any equipment exposed to the lunar surface. One of the significant limitations of current simulants is the lack of certain constituents, such as agglutinates. These constituents, which can account for up to 60% by volume of a mature regolith soil, are widely regarded as components that must be present in any high fidelity simulant. Recently, Plasma Processes, Inc. has developed a process to produce Mare agglutinate simulant particles from JSC-1A feedstock. Characterization has confirmed that these agglutinate simulants have features (e.g. morphology, chemistry, crystalline phase content, nano-phase Fe) similar to actual lunar agglutinates. When mixed with the JSC-1A root simulant in the correct proportions, the combination results in a high fidelity derivative Mare simulant. However, considering approximately 87% of the lunar surface consists of Highland regolith composition, mature Highland simulants are also of great interest. Hence, the primary technical objective of the proposed Phase I effort is to extend the technology employed to enhance the fidelity of Mare simulants to the production of high fidelity derivative Highland simulants.

Technology employed is can be used in the production of powder metallurgy products, protective coatings, catalysts, composite additives, sintering aids, microfiltration membranes, rocket fuel additives, rocket motors, electronics, fuel cell technologies.

High fidelity lunar simulant for validating life span and efficiency of processes and equipment exposed to the lunar surface.

This is early/mid-stage (TRL 4) — the most realistic path in is NASA SBIR/STTR, which funds small businesses and research institutions to develop technology aligned with NASA's needs (equity-free, phased funding). Check whether a current SBIR/STTR solicitation topic overlaps with this project's technology area, or contact the project directly (above) to ask.

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