Dust Mitigation Technology Roadmap: LSIC Spring 2026

As humans return to the Moon and set their sites on Mars with spacesuits, rovers, habitats, and other assets during the Artemis missions, the lunar and Martian regolith (i.e. dust) covering the surface will be an environmental and performance challenge to nominal and contingency operations. Accounts from Apollo astronauts and analysis of hardware returned from the surface illustrate just how deleterious the dust can be. During Apollo missions, the lunar dust adhered to the spacesuits mechanically and electrostatically, and the rovers experienced mechanical malfunctions. The Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate (ESDMD) defines and manages systems development for programs critical to NASA’s Artemis program and planning for NASA’s Moon to Mars (M2M) exploration approach. ESDMD manages the human exploration system development for lunar orbital, lunar surface, and Mars exploration.