Preparation and Handling Large Quantities of JSC-1A Lunar Regolith Simulant for the 2007 Regolith Excavation Challenge

摘要

The 2007 Regolith Excavation Challenge, a NASA Centennial Challenge, was conducted in May 2007 at Santa Maria, California. This lunar analog activity was intended to encourage competitors to design innovative excavation systems that can accommodate the unique properties of lunar regolith while performing within the limitations of operational constraints. For the challenge, the excavation systems were required to be autonomous, weigh less than 40 kilograms, operate on less than 30 watts, and excavate more than 150 kg of regolith in 30 minutes. In order to support the competition event, eight tons of JSC-1A lunar regolith simulant was acquired. A large “sand box” was built to contain the regolith simulant for the competition event. Handling the large quantities of simulant introduced several challenges and several insightful observations (dust, stability, etc.) were made that could potentially benefit other research employing lunar regolith simulant. One of the most challenging aspects of the competition was the attempt to best replicate lunar regolith compaction with the simulant. Due to the size of the “sand box” and the amount of simulant, many methods of densification were considered prior to the event. The results revealed good compaction can be obtained in large test bins of simulant presenting an opportunity for using this analog in other important lunar exploration systems tests.