Preventing and removing the build-up of regolith on an astronaut's space suit is a major issue facing future manned exploration missions. The dust poses a health threat to astronauts; it also adversely affects their equipment. The Field Integrated Regolith Cleaning Experiment (FIRCE) was designed to study different techniques for removing regolith as well as reviewing what commercial off-the-shelf products were best suited for cleaning space suit orthofabric and polycarbonate (used on the astronaut's visor). All of the commercial products worked well in both the 1-g environment as well as the 0-g environment. All were ranked above a 7.0/10 for ease of use and above 7.6/10 for cleaning effectiveness. A custom made magnetic brush, designed to attract the regolith's static charge was not effective at removing dust because the humidity in the air prevented the build-up of static charge on the regolith.
Crew 110A consisted of a team of engineers, undergraduates and graduate students, from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. During our stay, we celebrated the New Year with an inaugural midnight EVA and red Martian cool-aid, we anxiously listened to the UW-Madison Badger Football Team play in the Rose Bowl, and we completed 15 EVA's within a seven day period.The crew set out with a mission to conduct habitability, atmospheric, geologic imaging, and space suit ergonomic studies and a vision to advance the space industry's exploration capabilities.The team worked with a NASA lead human factors engineer to design a habitat architecture study, a member from ESA on 3D imaging, and a professional astronomer. The crew also looked at habitable space for crew exercising and made outreach videos for upcoming middle school and high school visits.
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