Experimental evaluation of Contamination contact transfer

Contamination transport from mechanical components and structures to scientific samples in exploration experiments is not yet well understood. Investigations are needed to characterise the transport mechanisms as a function of materials, surface properties, chemical and physical and eventually biological properties of contaminants.

Contamination transfer can be influenced by many parameters. Contaminants can be transported by several mechanisms, like outgassing, offgassing, contact, saltation etc. To validate complex models and to quantify effective transfer rates, experimental validation of these models is necessary. For this it is proposed to conduct experiments in a well defined environment with well characterised sample and surface properties, geometries etc. and to devise mitigation strategies by proposing e.g. appropriate engineering measures to limit the contamination transfer.