Planetary Simulant Database
Free Resource for Regolith Simulant Information
Mineralogy
| Simulant variety | Material |
|---|---|
| ES-1 | Stjernoy Nepheline Syenite S7 |
| ES-2 | Red Hill 110 silica sand |
| ES-3 | Leighton Buzzard DA30 silica sand |
Bulk Chemistry
No data available
Physical Properties
| Property | ES-1 | ES-2 | ES-3 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Grain size | <3-30 μm | 60-250 μm | 300-800 μm |
| Grain density (g/cm3) | 2.32 | 2.56 | 2.6 |
ES-X Mars Simulants
Simulant Name: ES-X Mars Simulants
Availability: May Be Available
Fidelity: Basic
Developed By: ESA
Available From: N/A
Publications: Brunskill, C. et al. (2011), Characterisation of martian soil simulants for the ExoMars rover testbed. Journal of Terramechanics, 48, 419-438.
The ES-X line of simulants are a series of purely geotechnical simulants used for hardware testing in the ExoMars rover testbed. They were developed from commercial sand products with a variety of grain sizes: ES-1 is fine dust, ES-2 is a fine aeolian sand, and ES-3 is a coarse sand.
The source materials may still be available from commercial suppliers so that other users could reproduce the same geotechnical properties of the simulants.
Images
Photographs of (from left to right) ES-1, ES-2 and ES-3, modified from Brunskill et al. 2011
