SPACE DUST REPELLING CARBON NANOTUBE FIBERS

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Abstract: The above video demonstrates how carbon nanotube fibers are integrated into a spacesuit to help spacesuits mitigate dust contamination for future lunar and Mars missions.The spacesuit fabrication and testing was performed by researchers from the University of North Dakota, Boeing, and the NASA Glenn Research Center. CNT fibers were produced by DexMat.

Spacesuit dust mitigation has been a topic of high relevance and a critical path for future planetary exploration missions including Moon, Mars and Asteroids. A previous study demonstrated utilizing Carbon Nanotube (CNT) yarns as electrodes embedded into coupons made of spacesuit outer-layer material. When a multiphase Alternating Current (AC) voltage signal was applied to this material, the spacesuit fabric repelled greater than 80% lunar dust simulant with particle sizes between 10-75m in ambient conditions. As a continuation to this study, the feasibility of scaling the CNT embedded dust removal system on larger portions of spacesuit is investigated. A scaled prototype, representative of the knee joint section of a planetary spacesuit utilizing specifics of the NDX-2 lunar spacesuit developed by University of North Dakota was constructed. The outer-layer of this prototype is embedded with the CNT dust removal system and tested under various conditions. Fabrication of this system and results from the experiments using lunar dust simulant are detailed in this paper.

Source: Spacesuit Integrated Carbon Nanotube Dust Removal System: A Scaled Prototype

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