Description: Understanding the behavior of fine particles in dusty environments in response to human and robotic activities is crucial to the success of exploration missions to the Moon, Mars, and especially to small bodies such as asteroids with negligible surface gravity. We propose to perform a low-energy impact experiment to be carried out in a zero-gravity environment using a commercial suborbital vehicle. The experiment is a modified version of the Collisions Into Dust Experiment (COLLIDE) that was flown previously on two space shuttle missions. Modifications to the experiment include individualized vacuum chambers and higher quality video data. The experiment has also been modified for autonomous operation on a commercial suborbital vehicle.
Nanorocks as a follow up onboard the ISS
smallsat follow up from the ISS experiment

Benefits: The experiments using this technology will simulate the kinds of disturbances to dusty planetary regolith that accompany both manned and unmanned exploration, which will eventually enable an optimized design of hardware and operational procedures on the surfaces of airless bodies with near-zero gravity.