NASA's Perseverance offers clues to protect future Mars crews from dust
Over 1,645 Martian days, NASA's Perseverance rover measured fine and ultrafine dust clinging to spacesuit-material samples, findings due in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that could inform spacesuit and habitat design for future Mars crews.
NASA’s Perseverance rover has measured fine and ultrafine Martian dust clinging to samples of spacesuit material carried aboard the rover over 1,645 Martian days, including particles small enough to penetrate the lungs and enter the bloodstream, NASA has said.
The findings are due to be published on Tuesday 27 October in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and could inform spacesuit and habitat design, dust-removal procedures and crew health standards for future missions to Mars, according to NASA (https://www.nasa.gov/missions/mars-2020-perseverance/nasas-perseverance-offers-clues-to-protect-crews-from-mars-dust/).
The rover carries five spacesuit-material samples on a calibration target for SHERLOC, an instrument on its robotic arm. A calibration target for PIXL, which provided the dust measurements, carries Teflon and basaltic glass.
While earlier measurements on Mars resolved dust down to about 3 micrometres, PIXL detected fine particles measuring less than 2.5 micrometres and ultrafine particles around 100 nanometres — about 700 times thinner than a human hair, which NASA puts at about 70 micrometres wide.
Static electricity appears to determine which size of particle sticks to which surface, NASA said, and the finest particles stayed attached through years of driving and drilling.
“The existence of Mars dust at these ultrafine sizes has been predicted for a long time, and PIXL gave us the chance to measure it directly on Mars,” said Scott VanBommel, a Perseverance scientist at Washington University in St. Louis and the paper’s lead author.
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