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An operating module (“Prophet”) for the precise detection & filtration of ferocious moon dust created by Astroboys’, with the help of data provided by NASA in the NASA space apps challenge 2019.
Lunar dust is proven to have harmful repercussions on astronauts and their space equipment in the past. More specifically, lunar dust can cause astronauts respiratory problems as well as decreasing the life expectancy of hardware. Our solution to the problem is to implement new systems to detect and monitor the precise location of the dust in spacecraft so it can be mitigated immediately.
Astroboys’ “Prophet” is a completely working module for dust detection and mitigation system. We encourage those who are interested to access our open-source data on our website at http://lunardust.appspot.com
As we already know, the harmful effect that moon dust has on astronautical equipment is not something to ignore. The primary issue regarding hazardous lunar dust has been previous systems being unable to detect the location of dust particles and invoking an appropriate response. Unlike these older systems, astroboys’ prophet greatly reduces the risk of lunar exploration by implementing a detection system that quickly responds to high volumes of dust.
“Prophet” systems have deep sleep implemented in order to reduce power consumption. Nodes are awakened during predetermined intervals to take reading for the dust density. If the dust density normal then it stores the data in the memory until the end of the day. At the end of the day, nodes transmit 8 -12 passive data points collected throughout the day. However, if dust density is above threshold levels, the device changes its state to active mode and starts to take readings at a more frequent interval and reduces its sleep interval. Inactive mode, “Prophet” nodes also publish this real-time data on an MQTT broker server. This helps the astronauts to monitor a particular area of the spacecraft remotely without risking themselves.
Lunar dust inhalation has both short term effects and long term effects. Short term effects include cell death and respiratory inflammation, while long term effects range anywhere from abnormal cell growth, loss of neurons, and possibly death. To reduce these risks, our team used a 2 stage filtration process for filtering the air inside of a vehicle. The pre-filter in our model is used to reduce the load on a high-efficiency filter. Generally, the pre-filter will capture particles of size greater than 100 microns and the high-efficiency filter captures particles of size less than 5 microns.
In addition, we’ve included a dust monitoring system that is installed on the inside of the filtration system at the back of the filter (air outlet) which monitors the outlet air quality whether if the filters need to be changed or not. Our idea is to install many air filtration systems inside the spacecraft and each filtration system acts as a separate node and each node will transmit real-time data to the server and can be collected over the database.
At this stage in the process, our team has designed a solution for how “Prophet” systems would detect lunar dust.
Lastly, we wanted to create a way for lunar explorers and their associates to access our open source project. This is why we created a responsive webpage using web technologies such as Node.js, Plot.ly, jQuery, and MQTT to display sensor data in a way conducive to rapid analysis. In this project, our web architecture took advantage of networked cloud services (specifically, Google Cloud) to expand our ability to respond to any number of web requests, at low traffic or high. This allowed our web architecture to be not only scalable but accessible too, as we could run instances of our app on regions throughout the world.
Link: http://lunardust.appspot.com
“Prophet” systems give lunar explorers security that has not been there in the past. Our team created “Prophet” systems for the advancement of lunar exploration and the wellbeing of human-kind.