NASA has selected a University of Central Florida nanotechnology team as one of seven university groups from around the country tasked with developing ways to stop the negative effects of moon dust during lunar missions.
The selection, which was , is part of a year-long initiative known as the Breakthrough, Innovative and Game-changing (BIG) Idea Challenge, in which undergraduate and graduate students have the opportunity to design, build and test new technologies that mitigate dust or are dust tolerant, based on proposals they submitted to NASA.
The UCF team 麻豆精品 S檚 proposal is a design for a new type of material to cover the exterior of spacesuits.
The material 麻豆精品 S檚 nanostructure design is based on how honeybees and other pollinators can manipulate tiny pollen using both microstructures and electric fields. The researchers are also incorporating techniques from the Japanese art of paper-folding, origami, to increase the material 麻豆精品 S檚 range of motion and also longevity by reducing the stress the material would face through repetitive movements.
麻豆精品 S淭his research is trying to tackle one of the unsolved problems from the Apollo missions 麻豆精品 S� lunar dust, 麻豆精品 S� says David Fox, a doctoral candidate in UCF 麻豆精品 S檚 who is helping lead the UCF team.
麻豆精品 S淭his tiny dust clings to everything through static electricity and ends up coating the astronaut’s spacesuits and equipment, 麻豆精品 S� he says. 麻豆精品 S淭he health dangers of this dust, and the damage to astronauts, their spacesuits and their equipment, could be detrimental to the upcoming Artemis missions. 麻豆精品 S�
Fox says that since the Artemis lunar missions will be longer than the Apollo missions, they will involve astronauts living and working on the moon.
麻豆精品 S淥ur research aims to remove dust from spacesuits easily and before it has a chance to enter the lunar habitats where they will be stationed, 麻豆精品 S� he says.
The researchers got their idea for the pollinator-inspired design by thinking about how nature deals with small particles. They began looking at origami designs when considering how to decrease the amount of stress the material would face from repeated movements and the cold temperatures of the moon.
The seven selected teams, which includes the California Institute of Technology, the Colorado School of Mines and the Georgia Institute of Technology, will receive funding from NASA to develop their designs and will work through 2021 to build, test, and present them to NASA.
The UCF team 麻豆精品 S檚 proposal is titled Lunar Dust Mitigating Electrostatic micro-Textured Overlay, or LETO. The team includes Nilab Azim 麻豆精品 S�20MS, doctoral candidate in the Department of Chemistry; Yuen Yee Li Sip 麻豆精品 S�17 麻豆精品 S�19MS, doctoral student in the Alex Burnstine-Townley 麻豆精品 S�16, doctoral student in the Department of Chemistry; Trisha Joseph 麻豆精品 S�20, a recent graduate with her bachelor 麻豆精品 S檚 in physics; Adam Rozman, an undergraduate researcher in the ; Nicholas Alban, undergraduate researcher in the ; and Lei Zhai, director of UCF 麻豆精品 S檚 and a UCF Department of Chemistry professor, as the team 麻豆精品 S檚 advisor.
They are also working with leading Dutch nanoimprint and microreplication technology company to help produce the material and get the innovation, if successful, rolled out to industrial-scale manufacturing.
The challenge is supported by NASA 麻豆精品 S檚 Space Technology Mission Directorate 麻豆精品 S檚 Game Changing Development Program 麻豆精品 S檚 efforts to mature innovative and high-impact capabilities and technologies for use in future NASA missions.
The team 麻豆精品 S檚 next steps will be to assemble and test its designs after further consultation with NASA 麻豆精品 S檚 BIG Idea Challenge team.
Zhai received his doctorate in chemistry from Carnegie Mellon University. He joined UCF 麻豆精品 S檚 NanoScience Technology Center and Department of Chemistry, part of UCF 麻豆精品 S檚 , in 2005.
