Publications Details
Effectiveness of intact capture media
The possibility of capturing cosmic dust at hypervelocity has been demonstrated in the laboratory and in the unintended Solar Max spacecraft. This technology will enable a comet coma sample return mission and be important for the earth orbital cosmic dust collection mission, i.e., the Space Station Cosmic Dust Collection Facility. Since the only controllable factor in an intact capture of cosmic dust is the capturing medium, characterizing the effectiveness and properties of available capture media would be very important in the development of the technique for capturing hypervelocity cosmic dust intact. We have evaluated various capture underdense media for the relative effectiveness for intact capture. 2 refs., 2 figs.