NASA Minds: Creating a Simulant for Moon Dust

In the spring of 2021, I took part in a research group whose goal was to create a general purpose lunar regolith, moon dust, simulant for use in testing equipment for the NASA Artemis program. Lunar regolith is a major hurdle to long term habitation on the moon. It's size and properties made it especially pervasive to every aspect of the mission. Astronauts would return from a moon walk and have to dump large quantities of the regolith that had penetrated their suits and equipment. Developing better suits and machines is of key interest to NASA and I was able to be a small part of the team. Besides analysing the result, I was in charge of designing and building the device that we used. The attached video is of myself and one of my advisors testing the device.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/kROm5uxIXHc