Martian Simulants

Name: C.M.Reethesh ID. :2018H1430045H

Abstract:

Exploration of Mars is not a science fiction any more. Lot of researches are going on
creating habitat on Mars. Permanent human settlement on Mars requires infrastructure to sustain
habitats and life. It costs about $4,000 to launch a kilogram of material to low Earth orbit and
many times that amount to send it to Mars, so trying to ship tons of concrete would be financially
ruinous and logistically very difficult. So, in order to overcome this kind of difficulties a bunch
of researches are going on construction of structures on Mars. (Johnson Space center)JSC Mars-
1, JSC Mars-1a, Mojave Martian Simulant(MMS) and JMSS-1(Jining Mars Soil Simulant) are
the materials which simulates the properties of soil in Mars. In this study the aim is to study the
Mars Simulant by considering the data taken from Mars rovers which analyzed the Martian
regolith using gas chromatography, mass spectrometry, and laser spectrometry to determine the
composition of Martian soil. The chemical composition obtained from the mentioned above tests
is as mentioned in the table-1. In this work it is aimed to demonstrate that Martian soil simulant
and it properties. The Martian simulant has property by which it can be directly compressed into
a solid block without additives, this property is having limelight attention in this study.
Nanoparticulate iron oxide (npOx), which is commonly detected in Martian regolith, is identified
as the bonding agent by which we are able to prepare solid blocks.

Keywords : JSC Mars-1a, Nanoparticulate iron oxide (npOx), Mars Simulant, Martian
soil/regolith.

Table – 1:

Major element composition of JSC Mars-1a in Martian soil simulants (wt%)

Components JSC Mars-1a MMS JMSS-1
SiO2 43.48 49.4 49.28±0.24
TiO2 3.62 1.09 1.78±0.01
Al2O3 22.09 17.1 13.64±0.33
Cr2O3 0.03 0.05 -
Fe2O3 16.08 10.87 16.00±0.07
FeO
MnO 0.26 0.17 0.14±0.01
MgO 4.22 6.08 6.35±0.08
CaO 6.05 10.45 7.56±0.06
Na2O 2.34 3.28 2.92±0.09
K2O 0.70 0.48 1.02±0.03
P2O5 0.78 0.17 0.3±0.01
SO3 0.31 0.1 -
Cl - – -
LOI 17.36 3.39 0.48±0.17
Total 99.70 99.4 99.47
Introduction:

Voyage to mars is attaining importance in space studies. Now a days many researches are
going on in this area of space study. Scientists and researchers are showing interest towards this
because earth is becoming polluted by the man made pollutants and also the resources on the
earth are getting decreased by the exploitation of those natural resources by the human. So in
order to withstand this kind of adverse conditions people are trying to make the human kind in to
multi planetary species. On account of that we are performing many researches on the adjacent
planet called Mars. As it is a costly afire to lift men and material from the low earth’s orbit, we
are trying to utilize the in-situ materials on the mars in order to construct structures on mars,
because lifting one kilogram of matter in to the low earth’s orbit it costs around $4000. In order
to design and construct a structure we need to know the material properties. In this study we are
going to know the properties of Martian soil by the simulants which simulates the exact behavior
and properties of the Martian soil. There are many simulants are there but the simulants which
are concentrating in this study are JSC Mars-1/1a, MMS(Mojave Martian Simulant), JMSS-1.
These are the major simulants which are used to study the properties such as mechanical
properties and to find the behavior of the simulated model in simulated Martian environment.
Martian regolith is formed by basaltic fines containing iron which are collected from the volcanic
eruption. The soil consists of substantial nanoparticulate iron oxides and oxyhydroxides,
collectively known as npOx. Some of the studies show that Martian soil also contains Sulfur by
which we can also prepare sulfur concrete by melting the sulfur which is present in the

Discussion:

JSC Mars-1/1a:
In this section we will discuss about the properties of JSC Mars-1. Both the JSC Mars-1
and JSC Mars-1a are one and the same because after the Viking landers and the Mars
Pathfinder's rover landed on Mars, the onboard instruments were used to determine the
properties of the Martian soil at the landing sites. The studies of the Martian soil properties led to
the development of JSC Mars-1 Martian regolith simulant at NASA's Johnson Space Center in
1998. The studies of the Martian soil properties led to the development of JSC MARS-1 Martian
regolith simulant at NASA's Johnson Space Center in 1998. It contains palagonitic tephra with
particle size fraction of less than 1 millimeter. The palagonitic tephra, which is glassy volcanic
ash altered at low temperature, was mined from a quarry at the Pu'u Nene cinder cone. The
studies of the cone, which is located between Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea in Hawaii, indicate
that the tephra is a close analog to the bright regions of Mars. But the simulant is made from
palagonitic tephra at Pu’u Nene in Hawaii which is the same cinder cone that was used to create
JSC MARS-1. The acquisition of the simulant is done by mining and sieving into sizes at the
quarry. The particle sizes are separated into two categories, less than 1 millimeter and less than 5
millimeters. None of these particles are smaller than 13 µm. There is no additional milling or
crushing to the materials. After milling to reduce its particle size, JSC MARS-1A can
geopolymerize in alkaline solutions forming a solid material. Tests show that the maximum
compressive and flexural strength of the 'martian' geopolymer is comparable to that of common
clay bricks.

The Martian regolith is converted in to a brick by applying the pressure on that material
and the bonding of the material is due to Nanoparticulate iron oxide (npOx).

Nanoparticulate iron oxide (npOx):

Another proposal for martian building materials eliminates a binder altogether. The soil is
full of iron oxide and oxyhydroxide particles about 25–45 μm across. If you compress the soil
grains at high enough pressure, you are going to cleave those iron oxide nanoparticles. The
breakage gives the nanoparticles clean, flat surfaces called Nanoparticulate iron oxide (npOx).
Under further pressure, they rotate so that the tiny, freshly cleaved facets press against each other
and form a bond. Nanoparticles bind to each other through a mix of van der Waals forces and
atomic bonds, and this is a assumption. The binding happens in just about a millisecond under
400 MPa of pressure. That is about the same amount of pressure produced by dropping a
hammer on the soil.

References :

1. Direct Formation of Structural Components Using a Martian Soil Simulant. Brian J.

Chow, Tzehan Chen, Ying Zhong & Yu Qiao. [2017]
2. JMSS-1: a new Martian soil simulant Xiaojia Zeng, Xiongyao Li, Shijie Wang, Shijie Li,
Nicole Spring, Hong Tang, Yang Li and Junming Feng. [2015]
3. A novel material for in situ construction on Mars: experiments and numerical
simulationsLin Wan, Roman Wendner, Gianluca Cusatis. (Table-1) [2016]
4. Martian Soil Simulant Availablefor Scientific, Educational Study Carlton C. Allen,
Karen M. Jager,Lindstrom, Marilyn M. Lindstrom. Richard V. Morris, David J. and John
P. Lockwood [1998]
5. https://cen.acs.org/articles/96/i1/build-settlements-Mars-ll-need.html [2017]
Weekly Schedule:
Date Schedule
15-08-2018 to 21-08-2018 Collection of Research papers
22-08-2018 to 28-08-2018 Mars-1a
29-08-2018 to 04-09-2018 Mars-1a
05-09-2018 to 11-09-2018 Mars-1a
12-09-2018 to 18-09-2018 Mojave Martian Simulant(MMS)
19-09-2018 to 25-09-2018 Mojave Martian Simulant(MMS)
26-09-2018 to 02-10-2018 Mojave Martian Simulant(MMS)/ JMSS-1
03-10-2018 to 09-10-2018 (Jining Mars Soil Simulant)JMSS-1
10-10-2018 to 16-10-2018 (Jining Mars Soil Simulant)JMSS-1
17-10-2018 to 15-11-2018 Report writing*(Monthly)