Adhesion Between Volcanic Glass and Spacecraft Materials in an Airless Body Environment

The successful exploration of airless bodies, such as the Earth s moon, many smaller moons of the outer planets (including those of Mars) and asteroids, will depend on the development and implementation of effective dust mitigation strategies. The ultrahigh vacuum environment (UHV) on the surfaces of these bodies, coupled with constant ion and photon bombardment from the Sun and micrometeorite impacts (space weathering), makes dust adhesion to critical spacecraft systems a severe problem. As a result, the performance of thermal control surfaces, photovoltaics and mechanical systems can be seriously degraded even to the point of failure. The severe dust adhesion experienced in these environments is thought to be primarily due to two physical mechanisms, electrostatic attraction and high surface energies, but the dominant of these has yet to be determined. The experiments presented here aim to address which of these two mechanisms is dominant by quantifying the adhesion between common spacecraft materials (polycarbonate, FEP and PTFE Teflon, (DuPont) Ti-6-4) and a synthetic noritic volcanic glass, as a function of surface cleanliness and triboelectric charge transfer in a UHV environment. Adhesion force has been measured between pins of spacecraft materials and a plate of synthetic volcanic glass by determining the pull-off force with a torsion balance. Although no significant adhesion is observed directly as a result of high surface energies, the adhesion due to induced electrostatic charge is observed to increase with spacecraft material cleanliness, in some cases by over a factor of 10, although the increase is dependent on the particular material pair. The knowledge gained by these studies is envisioned to aid the development of new dust mitigation strategies and improve existing strategies by helping to identify and characterize mechanisms of glass to spacecraft adhesion for norite volcanic glass particles. Furthermore, the experience of the Apollo missions revealed that dust mitigation strategies must be subjected to high fidelity tests. To facilitate the effectiveness of ground-based testing of mitigation strategies, the issue of a pressure limit for high fidelity tests will be addressed

SSERVI Annual Report: Year 4

The SSERVI Central Office forms the organizational, administrative and collaborative hub for the domestic and international teams, and is responsible for advocacy and ensuring the long-term health and relevance of the Institute. SSERVI has increased the cross-talk between NASAs space and human exploration programs, which is one of our primary goals. We bring multidisciplinary teams together to address fundamental and strategic questions pertinent to future human space exploration, and the results from that research are the primary products of the institute. The team and international partnership reports contain summaries of 2017 research accomplishments. Here we present the 2017 accomplishments by the SSERVI Central Office that focus on: 1) Supporting Our Teams, 2) Community Building, 3) Managing the Solar System Treks Portal (SSTP), and 4) Public Engagement

Modeling, Theoretical and Observational Studies of the Lunar Photoelectron Sheath

The Moon, lacking an atmosphere and a global magnetic field, is directly exposed to both solar ultraviolet radiation and a variety of ambient plasmas. On the lunar dayside, a photoelectron sheath develops and the surface typically charges positively since the photoemission current is at least an order-of-magnitude greater than any ambient current. This sheath dominates the near-surface plasma environment and controls the charging, levitation and transport of micron-sized dust grains. In this thesis, we first model the lunar near-surface plasma environment via a one-dimensional particle-in-cell code. The sheath potential, electric field and plasma densities are presented over a wide range of plasma parameters. Additionally, the charging and transport of micron- and sub-micron sized dust grains is modeled via a test-particle approach in an attempt to explain Apollo-era observations of lunar dust dynamics. Secondly, we present a comparison of the particle-in-cell results with theoretical, kinetic derivations of the lunar photoelectron sheath. We extend previous theories to include the presence of a κ-distribution for the solar wind electrons. Finally, we present a comparison of in-situ measurements of the lunar photoelectron sheet in the terrestrial plasma sheet by the Lunar Prospector Electron Reflectometer with particle-in-cell simulations to confirm the presence of non-monotonic sheath potentials above the Moon. Future work in all three sections, (simulation, theory and observation) is presented as a guide for continuing research

Fully kinetic particle-in-cell simulations of plasma-surface-dust interactions for lunar exploration

The studies involving lunar surface explorations have drawn attentions in recent years. A better understanding of possible potential hazards to astronauts and electronic equipment has become a necessity for future lunar explorations. The lunar surface, lacking an atmosphere and global magnetic field therefore directly exposed to solar radiation and solar wind plasma, is electrically charged by the bombardment of solar wind plasma and emission/collection of photoelectrons. Additionally, lunar dust grains can also get charged and levitated from the surface under the influence of the electric field as well as gravity within the plasma sheath. Since the plasma sheath formed near the illuminated lunar surface is dominated by photoelectrons, it is usually referred to as \u27photoelectron sheath\u27. In this research, we will focus on resolving the photoelectron sheath structure near lunar surface through numerical simulations. Firstly, we will introduce the fundamental assumptions of our analytic and simulation studies. We will present the derivation of a 1-D semi-analytic model to numerically obtain the quantities of interest as functions of the distance from surface within the photoelectron sheath. Secondly, we will present the numerical simulations with a fully kinetic Finite Difference (FD) Particle-in-Cell (PIC) code to solve the surface charging problem on lunar surface. In this study, we will consider both Maxwellian and Kappa distribution of solar wind electron velocities. Finally, we will show our current studies on the charged lunar dust lofting and transport under the influence of local electrostatic environment. We will consider both uncoupled and coupled method in the simulations. In uncoupled method, a steady state electric field is obtained through FD-PIC simulations and provided to simulate the charged dust transport, indicting that the charged dust transport does not influence the local electrostatic environment. Whereas in the coupled method, the electrostatic environment and the charged dust transport are simulated simultaneousness, which means the electrostatic environment and the dust transport influence each other during the simulations --Abstract, page iii