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Achieving a Prioritized Research and Technology Development Portfolio for the Dust Management ProjectMission architectures for human exploration of the lunar surface continue to advance as well as the definitions of capability needs, best practices and engineering design to mitigate the impact of lunar dust on exposed systems. The NASA DMP has been established as the agency focal point for dust characterization, technology, and simulant development. As described in this paper, the DMP has defined a process for selecting and justifying its R&T portfolio. The technology prioritization process, which is based on a ranking system according to weighted criteria, has been successfully applied to the current DMP dust mitigation technology portfolio. Several key findings emerged from this assessment. Within the dust removal and cleaning technologies group, there are critical technical challenges that must be overcome for these technologies to be implemented for lunar applications. For example, an in-situ source of CO2 on the moon is essential to the CO2 shower technology. Also, significant development effort is required to achieve technology readiness level TRL 6 for the electrostatic cleaning system for removal of particles smaller than 50 pm. The baseline materials related technologies require considerable development just to achieve TRL 6. It is also a nontrivial effort to integrate the materials in hardware for lunar application. At present, there are no terrestrial applications that are readily adaptable to lunar surface applications nor are there any obvious leading candidates. The unique requirements of dust sealing systems for lunar applications suggest an extensive development effort will be necessary to mature dust sealing systems to TRL 6 and beyond. As discussed here, several alternate materials and technologies have achieved high levels of maturity for terrestrial applications and warrant due diligence in ongoing assessment of the technology portfolio. The present assessment is the initial step in an ongoing effort to continually evaluate the DMP technology portfolio and external non-NASA relevant technology developments efforts to maintain an optimal investment profile. At the same time, there is an ongoing review of agency-wide dust-related R&T activities. The results of these ongoing assessments will be reported in future publications.
Document ID
20090035821
Acquisition Source
Ames Research Center
Document Type
Conference Paper
Authors
Hyatt, Mark J.
(NASA Glenn Research Center Cleveland, OH, United States)
Abel, Phillip
(NASA Glenn Research Center Cleveland, OH, United States)
Delaune, Paul
(NASA Johnson Space Center Houston, TX, United States)
Fishman, Julianna
(California Univ. Santa Cruz, CA, United States)
Kohli, Rajiv
(Aerospace Corp. Houston, TX, United States)
Date Acquired
August 24, 2013
Publication Date
March 7, 2009
Subject Category
Space Sciences (General)
Report/Patent Number
ARC-E-DAA-TN216
Meeting Information
Meeting: 2009 IEEE Aerospace Conference
Location: Big Sky, MT
Country: United States
Start Date: March 7, 2009
End Date: March 14, 2009
Sponsors: Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, American Inst. of Aeronautics and Astronautics
Distribution Limits
Public
Copyright
Public Use Permitted.
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