A planetary environmental simulator/ test facility

Abstract

Under a 2-year program funded by the Canadian Space Agency, ITL Inc. is developing and manufacturing a Planetary Environmental Simulator/Test Facility to be used for testing and life-time evaluation of candidate spacecraft materials and mechanical systems, space suits, and planetary mission crew habitats. The basic facility will include a vacuum chamber and a number of environmental sources to simulate the planetary surface environments, including dust particles, UV radiation, temperature conditions and darkness, as well as simple fixtures and test rigs enabling to conduct mechanical testing of planetary rovers’ components. The stainless steel high-vacuum chamber is cylindrical in shape with one of its ends designed to have a semi-spherical shape. The cylindrical part of the simulation chamber is 3000 in diameter and ~5100 long. The sample holder/sample transfer system allows a total displacement of ~1200 inside the chamber and allows for heating, cooling, and thermal cycling of the samples. The basic dust particles’ source includes a lunar/Martian soil simulant container, a dust refill compartment, and a funnel-like enclosure in which the dust cloud is generated and designed to confine the dust and prevent it from spreading all over the chamber. The dust is activated by a paddle actuator located inside the source, allowing generating dust clouds of different intensity and configuration. The source is designed also to mix the particles during the dust simulant conditioning stage. A multi-stage evolutionary path of the facility is outlined with the aim to create an advanced test facility that will be used to support the design, testing, and validation of Canadian space robotic hardware.