ITL in the news

ITL is participating in the NASA organized RAC Payload mission.

Being the only foreign participant, ITL prepared a set of samples treated with its dust mitigation technology for inclusion in the “Regolith Adherence Characterization (RAC) Payload” funded by NASA and developed and built by Aegis.
The goals of the RAC Payload mission are to evaluate several materials and coatings with dust mitigation properties for their ability to repel or shed lunar regolith/dust, (e. g. solar cells, optical systems, coatings, sensors) and to determine regolith accumulation rates: 1) caused by landing, and 2) during routine lander operations.
https://aegisaero.com/news/aegis-aerospace-celebrates-first-lunar-payload-delivery/

Image of the RAC cassette as integrated on the Intuitive Machines after landing

Image of the RAC cassette as integrated on the Intuitive Machines Nova-C Lander (artist view, credit Aegis) after landing (left) and the cassette with the 15 samples that will be exposed to the landing conditions (right). (Credit Aegis).

Recently an article appeared in MDA’s LaunchPad website

Recently an article appeared in MDA’s LaunchPad website about ITL’s collaboration with MDA scientists and engineers. The Collaboration is one of MDA’s core values, and key to their mission in making ambitions come true. This all comes together in MDA LaunchPad, where MDA partners with innovative businesses to build and grow.

https://mda.space/launchpad/integrity-testing-laboratory

ITL is also secured space for a number of samples on the MISSE-17 flight to the ISS.

NEW MATERIALS FOR LEO, GEO AND PLANETARY ENVIRONMENTS ON MISSE-17

Next step in evaluating in ram and wake directions the robustness of ITL technologies

Jacob Kleiman

ITL developed a charge dissipative multifunctional coating with dust mitigation properties, for surface energy minimization that can be applied to the surfaces of various space materials. A few thermal control materials, i. e. a pristine and metalized Kapton HN and a metalized Teflon FEP were treated with this proprietary coating and will be checked in the ram and the wake directions on the 6-month MISSE-17 flight. In ram direction two thermal control materials, i. e a 1 mil KaptonHN with a doped DLC on it and an aluminized 1 mil KaptonHN with a DLC film on it will be provided. For the wake position two of our new thermal control materials, i. e. a doped DLC on a 1 mil aluminized KaptonHN and a doped DLC on a silver-coated Teflon FEP will be provided, to check both for thermal cycling and UV exposures. In addition, two samples of Lunar dust Work Function Matching Coating (WFMC) on Kapton HN (WFMC/Kapton) will be prepared and added, one in ram direction and one in wake direction.

The samples were delivered to AEGIS and will be flying on SpX-27, which is tentatively scheduled for launch on the evening of Friday, March 10th from Kennedy Space Center as part of the MISSE-17 mission on the International Space Station.

We would like to thank NASA – National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Aegis Aerospace Inc., the the Canadian Space Agency and ITL staff for devotion to this project.