Electromagnetic characterization of lunar dust simulants

Abstract

Even though the colonization of the Moon is still a long term objective for mankind, there already exist studies analysing the different usages lunar dust (regolith) might have. Following this idea, several simulants of the real regolith have been developed in order to understand its behaviour and be able to work with it in a more efficient way. This paper intends to contribute to those efforts, investigating the electromagnetic properties of EAC-1A and JSC-2A, which had never been measured before. This document presents the results obtained in terms of complex permittivity, complex permeability and tangent loss of the aforementioned regolith simulants at ambient temperature from 400 MHz to 20 GHz. Furthermore, a comparison among both simulants, previously measured ones and real samples is held. The measurements were carried out by means of two different non-resonant techniques, the Open-Ended Coaxial Probe (OECP) and the Transmission Line Method, using DAK and EpsiMu kits respectively.