Landing on the moon is definitely not an easy task, but there are many more challenges on the moon waiting for the astronauts. On this seemingly very peaceful place, there is a thing that is often neglected by most people, but is actually heavily affecting the journey on moon — Dust.

These tiny particles, not only do they block the vision of the roving vehicle, but also causing serious health issues to the astronauts. Also, when they get in inside the spacecraft, they would then become a potential threat to the safety of the astronauts.

For this, our group is now presenting a solution to reduce the amount of lunar dust getting into the spacecraft.

Field Curtain:

Adopted from the traditional air curtain installed at the entrance of shopping malls. We think that the best way of reduction is to prevent them of getting in.
The field curtain makes use of the dielectric property of the lunar dust, various researches have been done on transporting lunar dust uses sinusoidal electric waves; or preventing the dust to land on flat surfaces by ‘Electrodynamic Dust Shield’. This idea of using electric field to move lunar dust particle has been used extensively and is proven to be effective.

At the entrance of the LM, there is a positive electrode above the hatch door, and a negative one below it, this would create an electric field pointing downward. With varying voltage along the electrode, a varying electric field like a wavy curtain will be created. When the door is opened, the influx of the charged lunar dust particles would be guided either upward or downward depends on their charges through the field. The electrode is shaped in a way that it is curved outward, such that when the particle is moving upstream (or downstream) and hit the electrode, it trajectory would be shooting outward, instead of accumulating at two ends.

With this field curtain, we believe it can effectively prevent the dust particles getting into the spacecraft.

Dust-off chamber:

After the astronauts get into the LM and the external door is closed, there is a small space for them to ‘wash’ their EVU (Extravehicular Unit). Their EVU is specially designed in a way that there is a thin metal mesh layer close to the surface layer throughout the whole suit. This layer is all connected to a port that is easily accessible externally by the astronaut. When the astronaut gets into the chamber, he would plug a socket onto his suit, such that the whole suit is charged, the dust on it is also induced with the same charge. By the principle of like charges repel, the charged dust would repel from the suit.

After the charging process, the suction system would turn on and pull a vacuum inside the chamber, the vibration system is on at the same time, the astronaut can also jiggle around at this stage. The charging process loosen the attraction between the dust and the suit; the vibration of the chamber and movement of astronaut get rid of the dust from the suit; the suction would remove the dust through the holes on two sides of the chamber and prevent them to stick onto the suit again.

This charging-vibration-suction process can be repeated for a few times to get a better cleaning of the suit. Also, the voltage of the charging process can also increase to loosen up those fine dust that is strongly attached on the suit.

We believe that these two process can effectively avoid the dust from entering the compartment of the LM, where the delicate and expensive control panel are; where the crucial experiments are on going, where the precious lunar samples are stored. And most importantly, no more astronauts would report being tripped over by a covered TV cable.

Please take a look of our presentation.

https://mycuhk-my.sharepoint.com/:p:/g/personal/11…

Below are two links to the outline of the curtain and the chamber:
Field Curtain: https://mycuhk-my.sharepoint.com/:v:/g/personal/11…
Dust-off Chamber: https://mycuhk-my.sharepoint.com/:v:/g/personal/11…

Recommend to download them for higher definition.

References

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D. Pollock and J. Organiscak, “Airborne Dust Capture and Induced Airflow of Various Spray Nozzle Designs,” vol. 41, no. 7, pp. 711–720, 2007.

[2]

C. I. Calle, C. R. Buhler, J. L. McFall, and S. J. Snyder, “Particle removal by electrostatic and dielectrophoretic forces for dust control during lunar exploration missions,” vol. 67, no. 2. pp. 89–92, 2009.

[3]

B. M. French, G. Heiken, D. Vaniman, B. M. French, J. Schmitt, and P. I. Lunar and, Lunar Sourcebook: A User’s Guide to the Moon. Cambridge University Press, 1991.

[4]

C. Meyer, “The Lunar Petrographic Educational Thin Section Set,” presented at the NASA Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center, Houston, TX, 2003.

[5]

D. J. Loftus, E. M. Tranfield, J. C. Rask, and C. McCrosssin, “The chemical reactivity of lunar dust relevant to human exploration of the Moon,” 2008.

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J. R. Gaier, “The Effects of Lunar Dust on EVA Systems During the Apollo Missions,” Mar. 2005.

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S. F. Sum, “Lunar regolith modeling based on Chang’E microwave brightness temperature measurements,” 2013.

[8]

C. Calle et al., “Integration of the Electrodynamic Dust Shield on a Lunar Habitat Demonstration Unit,” 2019.

[9]

T. J. Stubbs, J. S. Halekas, W. M. Farrell, and R. R. Vondrak, “LUNAR SURFACE CHARGING: A GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE USING LUNAR PROSPECTOR DATA.,” presented at the Dust in Planetary Systems: Workshop Program and Abstracts, 2005, vol. 1280, p. 139.

[10]

C. I. Calle, C. R. Buhler, M. R. Johansen, M. D. Hogue, and S. J. Snyder, “Active dust control and mitigation technology for lunar and Martian exploration,” vol. 69, no. 11–12, pp. 1082–1088, 2011.

[11]

W. Reed, G. Joy, B. Kendall, A. Bailey, and Y. Zheng, “Development of a roof bolter canopy air curtain for respirable dust control,” vol. 69, no. 1, p. 33, 2017.