1.1 EVA SAMPLE RETRIEVAL ISOLATOR – NASA HABITAT DEMONSTRATION UNIT (HDU)

The Habitat Demonstration Unit (HDU) project is a unique project from a multi-center team of NASA architects, scientists, and engineers. The Nasa multi-team worked together to develop sustainable living quarters, workspaces, and laboratories for next-generation space missions. ICS was privileged to build a custom Isolator for NASA to integrate into the HDU as the Geo-Lab work center.

The 2010 GeoLab is the first geological laboratory integrated into an analog field–based facility. It is a prototype, shirt-sleeve geological sample processing facility that includes a customized glovebox by integrated Containment Systems, LLC. The lab contains sample pass-through chambers for sample transfers from outside, a microscope, and a handheld X-ray Fluorescence instrument. These features provide a controlled environment for performing preliminary examination and characterization of samples collected during Extravehicular Activity (EVA) traverses. Lab-based data collection for prioritizing samples for return, to inform the science team planning future traverses, and to provide data for determining appropriate early curation procedures for specific examples. The GeoLab operations enable us to test operational concepts and evaluate models for preliminary examination and geological samples’ geochemical fingerprinting. The technology demonstration helps to define the advances required for field-based sample characterization.

Additionally, the Isolator integrates with three external airlock portals through the side of the HDU main chamber. The portals give Astronauts direct access from the exterior platform of the HDU to load rocks, soil and other samples collected from the Moon terrain directly into the Isolator. Astronauts inside the HDU can then analyze the samples collected, working through special gloves to use various instruments without contact exposure with the samples or chamber atmosphere.