NASA Logo

NTRS

NTRS - NASA Technical Reports Server

Back to Results
Electrostatic Regolith Interaction Experiment (ERIE) Electrometer Initial Flight ResultsThe Electrostatic Regolith Interaction Experiment (ERIE) is a suborbital flight payload studying electrostatically charged dust particle dynamics under microgravity, jointly developed by University of Central Florida (UCF) and NASA Kennedy Space Center (KSC). ERIE combines components from two systems, the COLLisions Into Dust Experiment (COLLIDE) from UCF and the Wheel Electrostatic Spectrometer (WES) from NASA KSC, to advance understanding of charged grain behavior on low gravity bodies such as the Moon and asteroids.

ERIE slides a door containing an electrometer system monitoring various insulating disks across the surface of a regolith simulant bed. The experiment is activated when the payload enters the microgravity potion of the flight. The grains in the simulant bed tribocharge via agitation during launch as well as through frictional interactions with the door and its protruding insulators. As the retention door retracts, particles are allowed to loft into an open volume, achieving motion due to electrostatic repulsion. The electrometer system measures the charge transfer between the granular material and the insulators. As the charged grains exit the bed, they travel through an applied electric field and a camera observes the kinematics of the individual grains whose trajectories are determined by their net charges.

The design of the ERIE electrometer instrument and initial results from the first flight was presented at the 2021 AGU Fall Meeting under P55E-2002. Shortly after microgravity was achieved and the retaining door began to open, the rate of charge acquisition measured by the electrometer increased, indicating the insulators were accumulating triboelectric charge. Charged grains were observed in the video data to traverse across the external electric field and become deflected from a linear path due to their charges. Pairs of grains were also observed to orbit one another as expected from two oppositely charged bodies in proximity to one another. Improvements to the design of the instrument and preliminary results obtained from the second flight scheduled for Q3 2022 will be presented at this meeting.
Document ID
20220011914
Acquisition Source
Kennedy Space Center
Document Type
Conference Paper
Authors
James R. Phillips III
(Kennedy Space Center Merritt Island, Florida, United States)
Adrienne R. Dove
(University of Central Florida Orlando, Florida, United States)
Krystal L. Acosta
(Kennedy Space Center Merritt Island, Florida, United States)
Jeffrey E. Dyas
(Kennedy Space Center Merritt Island, Florida, United States)
Date Acquired
August 3, 2022
Subject Category
Physics (General)
Meeting Information
Meeting: American Geophysical Union (AGU) Fall Meeting 2022
Location: Chicago, IL
Country: US
Start Date: December 12, 2022
End Date: December 16, 2022
Sponsors: American Geophysical Union
Funding Number(s)
WBS: 950152.04.10.19.76
CONTRACT_GRANT: 80NSSC20K0109
Distribution Limits
Public
Copyright
Use by or on behalf of the US Gov. Permitted.
Technical Review
External Peer Committee
Keywords
Electrostatics
Regolith
Electrometer
Microgravity
Tribocharging
Dust
Grains
No Preview Available