Construction and Initial Testing of the Lunar Dusty Plasma Experiment (LDPX)

In the lunar environment, charged dust particles can present a hazard to the safety of lunar explorers and the integrity of materials. To understand the behavior of charged lunar dust particles, we constructed the Lunar Dusty Plasma Experiment (LDPX) at Auburn University under the guidance of NASA. LDPX consists of an RF-generated plasma and a DC electrode with a reverse bias to arc synthetic lunar dust into the plasma. Initial tests used glass microscope slides as a dust collection medium in both horizontal and vertical orientations, while recent experiments have studied metal samples with different surface finishes and space suit valve designs from Innovative Aerospace. Future work will aim to qualitatively analyze the plasma characteristics and the effect of insulators versus conductors related to charged lunar dust collection and removal.