Developing Carbonaceous Chondrite Asteroid Simulants

Abstract

This paper describes the processes and challenges of producing high-fidelity asteroid simulants. DSI (in partnership with UCF) is producing four families of carbonaceous chondrite simulants: CI, CR, CM, and C2. Britt provided target mineralogies, recommendations for researcher safety considerations, and target physical characteristics of selected meteorites, described separately. Here, we describe the source materials, elemental fidelity, the processes used to prepare the minerals and produce those simulants, and the resulting physical characteristics of various simulant morphologies. We selected reproducible mineral sources available at modest cost, requiring some compromises in elemental fidelity. In some cases, closely-related minerals were substituted to improve the physical characteristics of the resulting simulants. The source materials were cleaned, crushed, powdered, and stored, in oxygen-free conditions where appropriate, creating a library of source materials for a variety of asteroid simulants. Each mineral is documented, both for elemental composition and particle size distribution. Issues with comminution led to changes in several processes. To create each simulant, several stages of processing are typically required, and the conditions are varied to control the resulting density/porosity, hardness/breaking strength, and morphologies. To create regolith, prepared simulant is subjected to impacts which create a power-law particle size distribution, mimicking what we expect to see on an actual asteroid. This effort resulted in a variety of carbonaceous chondrite simulants, available to researchers in several forms, with consistent and well-documented characteristics.

Publication Date

1-1-2018

Publication Title

Earth and Space 2018: Engineering for Extreme Environments - Proceedings of the 16th Biennial International Conference on Engineering, Science, Construction, and Operations in Challenging Environments

Number of Pages

8-16

Document Type

Article; Proceedings Paper

Personal Identifier

scopus

DOI Link

https://doi.org/10.1061/9780784481899.002

Socpus ID

85068080888 (Scopus)

Source API URL

https://api.elsevier.com/content/abstract/scopus_id/85068080888

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