The objective of this activity is to investigate the interaction between rocket engines and regolith at a fundamental level, in support to all planetary and lunar landing environments studies.

 

 

Here it is proposed to conducted charged dust particle investigations in reduced atmospheres and hence plume/regolith interaction to provide mission assessments for its lunar, meteor and planetary missions including the Phootprint mission. Such studies are vitally important as the interaction of the hovering and landing plumes with regolith can have a severe impact on mission objectives and vehicle/engine performance. The study aims to provide with:

 

• Assessment of scaling phenomena, vacuum effects and pulsing of rockets.

• The erosion effect of the plume impingement on the planet surface.

• The lateral extent and depth of regolith contamination due to rocket plumes.

• The impact of the plume/regolith interaction on the spacecraft force and torque balance.

• The effect of the regolith liberated by the rocket plume impingement on the spacecraft force balance and particularly on the engine and engine-nozzle during lunar/planetary landing operations.

• Brown out due to plumes and surface dust.

 

Further, the realization of the study foreseen a facility that will be later used in the frame of the CleanSpace initiative, Space Debris Mitigation (Branch 3), Design for Demise (DfD). Here strategies that rely on explosive fragmentation during flight in the rarefied regime and subsequent thermal demise in dense atmosphere of the re-entering spacecraft structure are required. The facility will be designed such that it will be capable of allowing small, controlled blasts to initially assess the fragmentation of structures in reduced atmospheres.