Speaker
Description
Both in manned and robotic exploration the crew protection and reduction of material degradation are key aspects in lunar (or Mars) surface applications. One of the main risks is caused by the exposal and interaction with lunar regolith and dust. Whereas the DEAR project focus on the contamination caused performance risks studies (dedicated presentation) the DuReCo project is investigating potential hard surface coatings for dust protection. The fundamental technology of SERAMCOATING covers spray coating of SiC on large and complex geometries. With the possibility to apply larger surface thickness on existing flight geometries the hard, thermal and chemical resistant coating might open interesting space application opportunities. Within a first project the coating was successful applied on space representative materials. In a next step potential applications for dust repellent surfaces, dust elevated temperature resistance and mechanism surfaces will be investigated. The project is funded by ESA.
