• Graham, G.
• Snead, C. J.
• Grant, P. G.
• Kearsley, A. T.
• Bradley, J. P.
• Ishii, H.

Abstract

In January 2006, NASA's Stardust Mission will return with its valuable cargo of cometary dust particles, the first brought back to Earth, captured at hypervelocity speeds in silica aerogel collectors. Aerogel, a proven capture medium, is also a candidate for future sample return missions and low-earth orbit (LEO) deployments. Critical to the science return of Stardust and future missions using aerogel is the ability to efficiently extract impacted particles from collector tiles. Researchers will be eager to obtain Stardust samples as quickly as possible, and tools for the rapid extraction of particle impact tracks that require little construction, training, or investment would be an attractive asset. To this end, we have experimented with diamond and steel micro-blades. Applying ultrasonic frequency oscillations to these micro-blades via a piezo-driven holder produces rapid, clean cuts in the aerogel with minimal damage to the surrounding collector tile. With this approach, impact tracks in aerogel fragments with low-roughness cut surfaces have been extracted from aerogel tiles flown on NASA's Orbital Debris Collector Experiment. The smooth surfaces produced during cutting reduce imaging artifacts during analysis by SEM. Some tracks have been dissected to expose the main cavity for eventual isolation of individual impact debris particles and further analysis by techniques such as TEM and nanoSIMS.

Topics

• impedance spectroscopy
• surface
• scanning electron microscopy
• experiment
• extraction
• steel
• transmission electron microscopy
• ultrasonic