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Preventing and removing the build-up of regolith on an astronaut’s space suit is a major issue facing future manned exploration missions. The dust poses a health threat to astronauts; it also adversely affects their equipment. The Field Integrated Regolith Cleaning Experiment (FIRCE) was designed to study different techniques for removing regolith as well as reviewing what commercial off-the-shelf products were best suited for cleaning space suit orthofabric and polycarbonate (used on the astronaut’s visor). All of the commercial products worked well in both the 1-g environment as well as the 0-g environment. All were ranked above a 7.0/10 for ease of use and above 7.6/10 for cleaning effectiveness. A custom made magnetic brush, designed to attract the regolith’s static charge was not effective at removing dust because the humidity in the air prevented the build-up of static charge on the regolith.Â

The crew would like to thank the Wisconsin Space Grant Consortium (WSGC), the UW- Madison Dean of Engineering, their faculty advisor Dr. Frederick Elder, and the Mars Society Mission Support for their knowledge, guidance, and support of the mission. We could not have accomplished our goals without you. Crew 110A consisted of a team of engineers, undergraduates and graduate students, from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. During our stay, we celebrated the New Year with an inaugural midnight EVA and red Martian cool-aid, we anxiously listened to the UW-Madison Badger Football Team play in the Rose Bowl, and we completed 15 EVA’s within a seven day period. The crew set out with a mission to conduct habitability, atmospheric, geologic imaging, and space suit ergonomic studies and a vision to advance the space industry’s exploration capabilities.