Requirements and Techniques for Developing and Measuring Simulant Materials

Abstract

The 1989 workshop report entitled Workshop on Production and Uses of Simulated Lunar Materials and the Lunar Regolith Simulant Materials: Recommendations for Standardization, Production, and Usage, NASA Technical Publication identify and reinforced a need for a set of standards and requirements for the production and usage of the lunar simulant materials. As NASA need prepares to return to the moon, a set of requirements have been developed for simulant materials and methods to produce and measure those simulants have been defined. Addressed in the requirements document are: 1) a method for evaluating the quality of any simulant of a regolith, 2) the minimum Characteristics for simulants of lunar regolith, and 3) a method to produce lunar regolith simulants needed for NASA's exploration mission. A method to evaluate new and current simulants has also been rigorously defined through the mathematics of Figures of Merit (FoM), a concept new to simulant development. A single FoM is conceptually an algorithm defining a single characteristic of a simulant and provides a clear comparison of that characteristic for both the simulant and a reference material. Included as an intrinsic part of the algorithm is a minimum acceptable performance for the characteristic of interest. The algorithms for the FoM for Standard Lunar Regolith Simulants are also explicitly keyed to a recommended method to make lunar simulants.