Low-Gravity Assessment of Crater Ejecta Emplacement
National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Solar System Workings Program
External Partners
- The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory
Project Description
What are the details of ballistic sedimentation? How does crater ejecta erode, slide, exhume, and deposit itself on a planetary surface? What happens when you "turn down" gravity? Our project uses a first-of-its kind ejecta emplacement catapult to simulate crater ejecta during reduced-gravity parabolic flight. Our preliminary results suggests that crater ejecta emplacement experiments do indeed "scale" and that some processes are dependent on gravity.
