Thread by @DrPhiltill

Just published this paper: a method to grade the fidelity of simulated asteroid materials. sciencedirect.com/science/articl…
We use "fake asteroids" for many reasons, including to do tests on spacecraft. But many engineers have mis-used the simulants, resulting in false test results... /1

2/ This can result in $100M's of loss and waste if a spacecraft fails to work during a mission. The test says it will work, but if the test is based on a simulated asteroid material that has the wrong properties then the test is just fooling everyone. So we need to prevent this.

3/ Ten years ago, @NASA created the original grading method for fake lunar soil that assessed just four properties: particle sizes, particle shapes, mineral and glass content, and density. Recently NASA chose @UCF to extend the method to also grade the fake asteroid materials.

4/ We found that the list of four properties was not enough to grade fake asteroids, so we added magnetic susceptibility, how much water is released at each degree increase of temperature as you heat the asteroid, how strong the rocks are when you try to crush them, and more.

5/ the UCF team also began creating families of fake asteroid materials. There are many types of asteroids. We are also creating simulated materials of the Moon, Mars, the moons of Mars, and more. This is done in the @ExolithLab.

6/ Our next step is to apply the new grading method to each of the simulated space materials that have been created. Then, engineers and researchers can easily know how accurate they are when testing a spacecraft, so they can be sure the spacecraft will work during the mission.