Our project focuses on the problem of moon dust, in particular the risk it poses to the health of astronauts and the wear and tear caused by the suit. It causes sneezing, sore throat and watery eyes, as astronaut Harrison Schmitt demonstrated after the Apollo 17 mission (1972).

Goals

Repel Moon Dust: Avoid wear and possible damage to suits.

Protect the user: Reduce the risk of ingesting moon dust and that it negatively affects the astronaut's health.

What is moon dust?

It is also known as a lunar regolith, being a fine, sharp powder like crushed glass that covers the surface of the Moon.

Experiments with mice had already shown the potential harmful effect of these tiny particles - with diameters of millions of meters - capable of infiltrating the respiratory tract and even the pulmonary alveoli, but a new study, published in the journal GeoHealth, extends the part of possible damage to the cells of the human body and its DNA. This would complicate the possibility of sending astronauts to the moon on long-duration missions, as U.S. President Donald Trump announced in December 2017.

Is there a solution?

At present, there is no adequate way to deal with this problem, as dust adheres to suits because of their electrical charge.

This lunar dust has positive charges on the diurnal side of the Moon caused by the Sun's intense ultraviolet (UV) light, which removes electrons from the dust layer. In this way, the grains of dust on the illuminated surface of the moon are positively charged.

On the other hand, the lunar dust acquires a negative charge at night, because it is bombarded by electrons that are free in the solar wind: that is, particles of the Sun that describe a curve behind the Moon and impact on the dark ground of the night.

The electrostatic suit (ES) is a space suit with copper circuits and integrated capacitors that run through its entire structure. Its main objective is to protect the user from harmful lunar dust and to avoid the heavy wear of expensive astronaut suits.

How it works?

Its operation is based on a network of capacitors that extend along the space suit through a copper mesh.

All positively charged conductors of the capacitors are in contact with the copper mesh, while the negatively charged conductor plates of the capacitors are connected to each other. In addition, between the copper mesh and the negatively charged conductors, there is a dielectric material. These characteristics together, and evenly distributed in certain areas of the suit, generate a strong positive electric field capable of repelling lunar dust.