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NASA Asks Students for Help With Solving a Dangerous Effect of Lunar Landings

The human race has gone to the Moon six times until now. It did so courtesy of the Apollo Moon exploration program, which put the boots of 12 people on that very dusty surface. So dusty, in fact, that most of their suits were severely damaged by lunar regolith, some to the point of having entire layers eaten away in the short time spent on the surface.
NASA launches Human Lander Challenge 6 photos
Photo: NASA
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You see, lunar regolith is not like the sand we so often enjoy barefoot here on Earth. Up there, we’re dealing with a very abrasive stuff that tends to stick to anything it comes in contact with.

That may not seem very dangerous and, despite some minor issues with it, regolith was not a particular threat to the Apollo missions. But as humanity is preparing to make the Moon a kind of a second home, it may just become so. And it all starts as soon as a lander gets close to the surface.

You see, just like here on Earth, a rocket’s exhaust causes a stir on the nearby soil, on the Moon, it will disturb the dormant regolith and send it flying all over the place. The abrasive pieces of moondust can pose a real threat to the lander itself, nearby instruments, and potential habitats that’ll be erected close to the landing pads.

Several ways to solve this issue are currently being researched, including one that calls for the lander’s engines to melt the regolith underneath and turn it into a sort of impromptu landing pad. Another idea calls for the rocket engines to deposit ceramic particles on the surface as the lander descends, resulting in instant landing pads as well.

Those ideas sound great, at least on paper, but they are so few and far between they can't actually be called a solution. So NASA is now looking for more ideas around the landing dust cloud problem.

The space agency made public this week something it calls the Human Lander Challenge (HuLC). It’s a competition meant for undergraduate and graduate college students that seek to bring to light “ways to manage or prevent the cloud of dust a spacecraft stirs up when using rocket engines to land on unprepared surfaces like the Moon.”

In a nutshell, NASA is looking for anything from dust shields to systems that could allow astronauts to see through these clouds if need be.

The Challenge is open to any college student in the U.S. It's unclear how many submissions the agency expects. But we do know it will choose 12 teams to compete in the final for a total of $18,000 in prizes.

Entries are accepted until the end of March 2024 on the dedicated portal, so there’s plenty of time for those interested to get their acts together. The winners will be announced in June 2024 in Huntsville, Alabama, during what will become the inaugural Human Lander Challenge Forum.

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Editor's note: Gallery shows images of the Masten way of generating instant landing pads on the Moon.

About the author: Daniel Patrascu
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Daniel loves writing (or so he claims), and he uses this skill to offer readers a "behind the scenes" look at the automotive industry. He also enjoys talking about space exploration and robots, because in his view the only way forward for humanity is away from this planet, in metal bodies.
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