• Journal of Space Technology and Applications
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• v.4 no.2
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• pp.121-136
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• 2024

Korea Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter (KPLO), launched in August 2022, is successfully carrying out its mission. Korea's lunar lander and rover programs are expected to proceed in the future. To successfully carry out the mission after the lunar lander has landed on the surface, the performance of the equipment to be mounted should be checked in a laboratory environment similar to the Moon. Scientists and engineers of several countries, including the United States and China, use lunar soil simulant which is developed to resemble lunar soil for simulating the surface of the lunar landing site. Several lunar probe landing sites are being discussed in Korea, and lunar soil simulants such as Korea Hanyang Lunar Simulant-1 (KOHLS-1), Korea Aerospace University Mechanical Lunar Simulants (KAUMLS), and Korea Lunar Simulant-1 (KLS-1), which are similar to the characteristics of lunar mare soil, have been developed. However, those simulants are not useful if the landing site is chosen as a highland area. In this study, we introduce the process of developing KIGAM-L1, a lunar highland soil simulant similar to the chemical composition of the Apollo 16 lunar soil sample and the particle size distribution of lunar soil sample 60500-1, in case the lunar lander lands at highland area.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.40 no.1
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• pp.51-58
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• 2020

As interest in lunar exploration increases, studies on lunar surface environment simulation including a lunar soil simulant are being conducted. One of the problems when creating a vacuum environment with lunar soil is that it takes long time to reach high vacuum due to outgas from the soil. Most of the outgas is water, and the time to reach high vacuum can be significantly reduced by a pretreatment process that removes moisture adhering to the surface of the lunar soil before putting soil into a vacuum chamber. The existing soil drying methods were examined to determine how these methods were effective to remove moisture from the lunar simulant soil. Drying experiments of lunar soil samples were carried out using a dry oven, a microwave oven, direct heating method and a vacuum oven, and the results of the drying experiment were presented. Drying soil at 110℃ using a dry oven and drying soil by a microwave oven were not enough to remove moisture, and vacuum oven drying method and direct heating drying method at more than 200℃ were effective in water removal.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
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• v.42 no.12
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• pp.1037-1044
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• 2014

In this study, we designed a drop test system considering lunar surface environment and tested landing gear of experimental lunar lander. The lunar lander would be landed at soil place for soft landing. When the lunar lander touches down, the acceleration of the lander is largely affected by mechanical characteristics of the lunar soil. Accordingly, a drop test using lunar soil is needed to verify the performance of the lunar landing gear. Because the lunar soil is not available generally, we developed a lunar simulant KAUMLS(Korea Aerospace University Mechanical Luna Simulant) based on mechanical properties of the lunar soil of NASA's LUNA PROJECT. In addition, drop tests on steel plate and dry sand are performed to evaluate impact characteristics by the surface environment.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.32 no.11
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• pp.97-108
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• 2016

Lunar rover plays an important role in lunar exploration. Especially, performance of rover wheel related to interaction with lunar soil is of great importance when it comes to optimization of rover's configuration. In this study, in order to investigate the motion performance of lunar rover's wheel on Korean Lunar Soil Simulant (KLS-1), a single wheel testbed was developed and used to carry out a series of experiments with two kinds of wheel with grousers and without grousers which were used to perform the experiments. Wheel traction performance was evaluated by using traction parameters such as drawbar pull, torque and sinkage correlated with slip ratio. The results showed that the single wheel testbed was suitable for evaluation of the performance of wheel and rover wheel with grousers which was likely to have higher traction performance than that without grousers in Korean Lunar soil simulant. The experimental results could be utilized in verification of the optimum wheel design and effectiveness of wheel traction for Korean lunar rover.

• Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences
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• v.38 no.4
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• pp.237-250
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• 2021

A rover is a planetary surface exploration device designed to move across the ground on a planet or a planetary-like body. Exploration rovers are increasingly becoming a vital part of the search for scientific evidence and discoveries on a planetary satellite of the Sun, such as the Moon or Mars. Reliable behavior and predictable locomotion of a rover is important. Understanding soil behavior and its interaction with rover wheels-the terramechanics-is of great importance in rover exploration performance. Up to now, many researchers have adopted Bekker's semiempirical model to predict rover wheelsoil interaction, which is based on the assumption that soil is deformable when a pressure is applied to it. Despite this basic assumption of the model, the pressure-sinkage relation is not fully understood, and it continues to present challenges for rover designers. This article presents a new pressure-sinkage model based on dimensional analysis (DA) and results of bevameter tests. DA was applied to the test results in order to propose a new pressure-sinkage model by reducing physical quantitative parameters. As part of the work, a new bevameter was designed and built so that it could be successfully used to obtain a proper pressure-sinkage relation of Korean Lunar Soil Simulant (KLS-1). The new pressure-sinkage model was constructed by using three different sizes of flat plate diameters of the bevameter. The newly proposed model was compared successfully with other models for validation purposes.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.33 no.5
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• pp.373-387
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• 2023

Scientific exploration of extraterrestrial planets has gripped human imagination since the advent of space travel. Human missions to Mars could produce insight into the essential questions of how, when and where life began on Earth. Such missions would only be feasible using local space resources materials, a concept called in situ-resource utilization (ISRU). The purpose of this paper is to provide a thorough review of the currently available Mars soil simulants and to determine those with geotechnical properties most appropriate for vehicle mobility studies. Sourcing and processing are considered since full-scale studies require bulk quantities of material on the order of tens of tons. This review identifies the simulants with the highest fidelity to Mars wind drift soils. In addition, recommendation guide for mars soil simulant development made.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.39 no.2
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• pp.345-349
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• 2019

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has long been studying the essential elements of manned planetary exploration and has held several international challenges to encourage the research works related to it. One of them was the NASA Centennial Challenge Programs which started in 2015. Following the second in 2017, the third is currently going on in 2019. Participating "3D-Printed Habitat Challenge", one of the challenges in the second program, this research team designed and developed the 3D printer extruding module for the Lunar Simulant (Korea Hanyang Lunar Simulant-1; KOHLS-1) and the polymer. For optimizing the modul, a cylindrical specimen of ${\varnothing}150{\times}300mm^3$ volume and a specimen of $200{\times}100{\times}650mm^3$ volume were manufactured and their compressive and flexural strengths were tested. The findings can help automatize the space construction in the future.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.37 no.4
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• pp.693-703
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• 2017

Rover wheel's mobility depends on soil's condition and wheel's design. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the effect of soil conditions, which are Jumunjin sand and Korean lunar soil simulant (KLS-1), on wheel's motion performance. The experiments were performed by using a single wheel testbed with a wheel which grouser height is 15mm on Jumunjin sand and KLS-1, respectively. Also the influence of grouser length to wheel's mobility performance was studied. The experimental results of torque, drawbar pull and sinkage relating to slip ratio were discussed and analyzed to evaluate wheel's motion performance. Results showed wheel moving on KLS-1 has high performance than Jumunjin sand. Wheel's mobility performance was influenced by soil's properties of cohesion and frictional angle. In addition, wheel's performance of drawbar pull and Torque increased with the increasing of grouser length.

• Journal of Soil and Groundwater Environment
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.54-64
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• 2021

The chemical warfare agents (CWAs) have been developed for offensive or defensive purposes and used as chemical weapons in war and terrorism. The CWAs are exposed to the natural environment, transported through the water system and then eventually contaminate soil and groundwater. Therefore, effective decontamination technology to remediate CWAs are needed. The CWAs are extremely dangerous and prodution is strictly prohibited, therefore, it is difficult to use CWAs even in experimental purpose. In this study, 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D) was chosen as a model representative CWA because it is a simulant of anti-plant CWAs and one of the major component of agent orange. The optimum degradation conditions such as oxidant:activator ratio were determined. The effects of hydroxylamine and chelating agents such as citric acid (CA), oxalic acid (OA), malic acid (MA), and EDTA addition to increase Fe2+ activation were also investigated. Scavenger experiments using tert-butyl alcohol (TBA) and ethanol confirmed that although both sulfate (SO4•-) and hydroxyl radical (•OH) existed in Fe2+-persulfate system, sulfate radical was the predominant radical. To promote the Fe2+ activator effect, the effect of hydroxylamine as a reducing agent was investigated. In chelating agents assisted Fe2+-persulfate oxidation, the addition of 2 mM of CA and MA enhanced 2,4-D degradation. In contrast, EDTA and OA inhibited the 2,4-D removal due to steric hindrance effect.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.39 no.6
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• pp.13-19
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• 2023

Lunar ice is a resource available for future human exploration in deep space and long-term extraterrestrial habitat. However, the origin and nature of lunar ice remains unclear. In addition to remote sensing, international space agencies are competitively planning and conducting missions for lunar surface exploration to determine the existence and resource extent of lunar ice. If a sufficient amount of lunar ice is confirmed, its future in-situ resource utilization is expected to be greatly beneficial. However, due to ice extraction, settlement may occur, which should be taken into account from a geotechnical engineering perspective. Herein, experimental investigations of the potential settlement caused by lunar ice extraction were conducted and different textures of lunar ice were simulated. Consequently, it was confirmed that significant settlement occurs even at the initial water content of ~10% in lunar regolith simulant-ice-mixed soil.