NASA Plume-Surface Interaction (PSI) Testing to Reduce Risk from Propulsive Landing

NASA's Artemis program will return humans to the surface of the Moon for the first time since the final Apollo mission in December 1972. The new lunar landers are larger, more powerful, and utilize different concepts of operations from those flown during the Apollo era. During descent and landing, the environment resulting from the impingement of rocket engine exhaust onto regolith, or plume-surface interactions (PSI), poses a potential hazard to all propulsive landing vehicles, as well as nearby assets and payloads supporting exploration of the surface. Understanding these phenomena has challenged lander design since the 1960s, and new test data are required to enable NASA’s lunar exploration goals and to safely fly these new vehicles. At present, NASA is conducting ground testing in a vacuum sphere to obtain data relevant for prediction of the PSI environments produced by human-scale landing systems. This presentation will discuss the test objectives, design, execution, challenges, and data products.