Space exploration demands many interesting solutions to complex problems. NASA has an Institute for Advanced Concepts (NIAC) that supports innovators who are trying to solve these problems. Sometimes, they grant funding to worthy projects that attempt to address these problems.
One of these grants has produced some interesting results. A Masten Space Systems team, with support from Honeybee Robotics and Texas A&M, devised a way for a lunar lander to deposit its own landing site on its way down.
Any powered landing craft on the Moon's surface are likely to encounter lunar dust. Retrograde rockets that are used to softly land on the Moon's surface will also kick dust into the air and rock up, potentially causing damage to the lander or the surrounding infrastructure.
A landing pad will reduce the dust's impact and make it easier to land.
Landing with or without the deposition system. (Masten Space Systems)
However, it would be extremely expensive to build a landing pad this way. According to current estimates, the cost of building a lunar landing platform using traditional materials is approximately US$120million.
This mission is also plagued by a chicken-egg problem. If there is no landing area, how do you get the materials needed to make the landing pad?
Masten's technology is a clever solution to both these problems.
Spacefarers could place a landing platform while they descend to make it possible for spacefarers to put a landing station in place before any spacecraft touches down. The installation would be much easier as it only requires a small additive to the rocket exhaust that has been blasted to the surface.
Masten's overall idea is simple enough to grasp.
The solid pellets would partially liquefy in the rocket exhaust and deposit on the blast zone. This could harden the exhaust to the point that dust is no longer an issue as it is protected by a hard shell. Masten believed that it could find the right material for rocket exhaust to accomplish this.
The physical properties of the additive pellets would determine whether or not they succeed. A rocket exhaust with too high heat tolerance would not melt the additive pellets properly, effectively bombarding the surface with tiny bullets.
However, an additive that is too heat-tolerant could be completely melted and vaporized by rocket exhaust to form a useless cloud.
Masten created a two-tiered system with large (0.5mm) alumina particles. This was used to create a base layer consisting of 1mm of melted lunar skin and alumina.
The FAST particle injector is in operation. (Masten Space Systems)
As the lander approached the base layer, it would switch to a 0.02 mm alumina particles, which would deposit at 6 m/s onto that layer. The landing pad would then cool down in 2.5 seconds.
Although it sounds like an impressive idea, it is still very early days. The NIAC grant, which was focused on the development of this depositable landing platform idea, follows a phased approach like many federal grants. The Phase I was primarily focused on making the idea feasible. Masten believes that it is.
Although functional is not the same thing as feasible, NIAC grants are meant to support wild ideas that could fundamentally alter some aspect of space exploration.
If Masten is right and the approach can be scaled up and is feasible, landing pads could be visible all over the lunar surface. The landing pads could also be seen on Mars.
Universe Today originally published this article. You can read the original article.
