Terrestrial Plume Impingement Testbed

Masten Space Systems proposes to create a terrestrial plume impingement testbed for generating novel datasets for extraterrestrial robotic missions. This testbed would allow rocket plume interactions with lunar, martian, and asteroid surface simulants in a fully instrumented, easy to access, and low cost environment using Masten Space's existing VTVL suborbital launch vehicles.The testbed will allow entry, descent and landing groups both inside and outside of NASA a low cost way of testing in situ regolith surface treatment, plume deflection, and ground effect mitigation technologies. The testbed will be optimized for testing ISRU based methods for launch/landing pad manufacturing such as optimal "paver" size and shape, life cycle management for pad materials, size and shape of hardened regolith bricks, and manufacturing methods. Phase I will include surveying potential users for requirements, conducting one simple "bench" test to validate those requiremens, anddocumenting an initial testbed design in anticipation of a Phase II proposal. During Phase I the testbed itself will go from TRL 2 to 5. Additionally the single bench test article will go from 3 to 6.