Kinetic Particle Simulations of Plasma and Dust Environments at Robotic Construction Sites near the Lunar Terminator
Publication: Journal of Aerospace Engineering
Volume 35, Issue 6
Abstract
This paper presents a kinetic particle simulation campaign of plasma and dust environments related to excavation and construction activities at the lunar terminator regions. The electrostatic field caused by the local plasma environment was resolved by a fully kinetic finite-difference (FD) particle-in-cell (PIC) code. Trajectories of lofted charged dust grains were traced in the obtained electric field as well as lunar gravity. Two surface terrain scenarios, one convex and the other concave, were considered, each with three cases of dust generation locations with respect to the surface feature. Results show that under average solar wind conditions, lofted charged dust grains are generally concentrated within several meters from the surface near the location of origination, but some dust grains can be lofted as high as about 80 m from lunar surface. A slight amount of dust can even reach over 100 m and migrate further due to greater dust charge. Based on these results, preferred locations to perform excavation and construction activities are recommended.
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Data Availability Statement
Some data, models, or code that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
Acknowledgments
This work was partially supported by NASA-Missouri Space Grant Consortium through NASA-EPSCoR-Missouri, as well as NSF through Grant Nos. DMS-2111039 and CBET-2132655. The simulations presented here were performed with computing resources provided by the Center for High Performance Computing Research at Missouri University of Science and Technology through a NSF Grant (OAC-1919789).
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Journal of Aerospace Engineering
Volume 35 • Issue 6 • November 2022
Copyright
© 2022 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Jan 2, 2022
Accepted: Jun 15, 2022
Published online: Sep 5, 2022
Published in print: Nov 1, 2022
Discussion open until: Feb 5, 2023
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