Summary

Description

NASA has an unmet need for clean, dust-free surfaces critical for many mission applications: solar panels and collectors, aircraft components, optical windows, photographic equipment, and flight suits. However, dust mitigation and removal remains a difficult task, particularly given the nature and morphology of space-born particulate materials and the strong bonds they can develop with any surface. Several mechanical techniques involving shaking and wiping have been devised to address this problem, but these are difficult to implement and expensive to maintain over mission life cycles. One successful innovation that has been developed and tested for dust removal is the "electrodynamic shield" or EDS. The EDS is composed of inter-digitated, electrically conductive electrodes connected to an AC power supply. The main parameters that govern the efficiency of dust removal are the voltage and the frequency of the AC signal applied to the electrodes. Poly Adaptive, LLC, proposes to investigate the novel application and use of nanoscale materials to address severe limitations of existing EDS designs caused by the metallic electrodes that reduce the amount of radiation reaching solar panels. Successful Phase I results will show the feasibility of an EDS that is transparent and can be placed on top of any surface.