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Development of a Modified Vacuum Cleaner for Lunar Surface SystemsThe National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) mission to expand space exploration will return humans to the Moon with the goal of maintaining a long-term presence. One challenge that NASA will face returning to the Moon is managing the lunar regolith found on the Moon's surface, which will collect on extravehicular activity (EVA) suits and other equipment. Based on the Apollo experience, the issues astronauts encountered with lunar regolith included eye/lung irritation, and various hardware failures (seals, screw threads, electrical connectors and fabric contamination), which were all related to inadequate lunar regolith mitigation. A vacuum cleaner capable of detaching, transferring, and efficiently capturing lunar regolith has been proposed as a method to mitigate the lunar regolith problem in the habitable environment on lunar surface. In order to develop this vacuum, a modified "off-the-shelf' vacuum cleaner will be used to determine detachment efficiency, vacuum requirements, and optimal cleaning techniques to ensure efficient dust removal in habitable lunar surfaces, EVA spacesuits, and air exchange volume. During the initial development of the Lunar Surface System vacuum cleaner, systematic testing was performed with varying flow rates on multiple surfaces (fabrics and metallics), atmospheric (14.7 psia) and reduced pressures (10.2 and 8.3 psia), different vacuum tool attachments, and several vacuum cleaning techniques in order to determine the performance requirements for the vacuum cleaner. The data recorded during testing was evaluated by calculating particulate removal, relative to the retained simulant on the tested surface. In addition, optical microscopy was used to determine particle size distribution retained on the surface. The scope of this paper is to explain the initial phase of vacuum cleaner development, including historical Apollo mission data, current state-of-the-art vacuum cleaner technology, and vacuum cleaner testing that has focused on detachment capabilities at varying pressure environments.
Document ID
20100016327
Acquisition Source
Johnson Space Center
Document Type
Conference Paper
Authors
Toon, Katherine P.
(NASA Johnson Space Center Houston, TX, United States)
Lee, Steve A.
(MEI Technologies, Inc. Houston, TX, United States)
Edgerly, Rachel D.
(NASA Johnson Space Center Houston, TX, United States)
Date Acquired
August 24, 2013
Publication Date
January 1, 2010
Subject Category
Lunar And Planetary Science And Exploration
Report/Patent Number
JSC-CN-20054
Meeting Information
Meeting: International Conference on Environmental Systems
Location: Barcelona
Country: Spain
Start Date: July 11, 2010
End Date: July 15, 2010
Sponsors: American Inst. of Aeronautics and Astronautics
Funding Number(s)
WBS: WBS 439906.04.04.04
Distribution Limits
Public
Copyright
Public Use Permitted.
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