Apollo Filters

[Dalhousie]

I'm looking at some pointers to the capabilities of the air filters on the CM and LM, e.g. they were able to remove particles down to X microns in size.

Thanks

[Dalhousie]

I'm looking at some pointers to the capabilities of the air filters on the CM and LM, e.g. they were able to remove particles down to X microns in size.

Thanks

Apparently nobodys knows....

[JayUtah]

All I could find was that the particulate filters were made of felt.  That didn't seem like a helpful answer to your question.

[Dalhousie]

All I could find was that the particulate filters were made of felt.  That didn't seem like a helpful answer to your question.

Thanks Jay.  Not particularly high performance then.  Was any effort made to vacuum up dust in the LM fromthefloor or off suits before liftoff?

Jon

[mako88sb]

All I could find was that the particulate filters were made of felt.  That didn't seem like a helpful answer to your question.

Thanks Jay.  Not particularly high performance then.  Was any effort made to vacuum up dust in the LM fromthefloor or off suits before liftoff?

Jon

There was definitely a vacuum cleaner although I don't know if it was on all Apollo missions. I seem to recall it being used on Apollo 12(I think?) when they went to inspect the inside of the LM during the pre-landing inspection and found a gauge had broken and they used the vacuum to try and get the tiny shards of glass.

Here's a pdf that discusses the problems of lunar dust for future missions and table II under the hazard/equipment clogged section shows that the Apollo 16 vacuum cleaner failed.
https://history.nasa.gov/alsj/TM-2005-213610.pdf

Haven't had a chance to go through it all yet so there's probably more info in the rest of it about vacuum cleaners used on Apollo missions.

[JayUtah]

Thanks Jay.  Not particularly high performance then.  Was any effort made to vacuum up dust in the LM fromthefloor or off suits before liftoff?

Yes, but the dust adhered to the suits so strongly that the vacuum cleaner mentioned was not very effective.

[bknight]

Thanks Jay.  Not particularly high performance then.  Was any effort made to vacuum up dust in the LM fromthefloor or off suits before liftoff?

Yes, but the dust adhered to the suits so strongly that the vacuum cleaner mentioned was not very effective.

Does it adhere to the suits because of electrostatic charges or angularity of the particles or both?

[JayUtah]

Does it adhere to the suits because of electrostatic charges or angularity of the particles or both?

Both.

[ka9q]

You'd think the humidity of the cabin air would take care of any electrostatics. The problem had to be mainly the sharp particles.

[JayUtah]

You'd think the humidity of the cabin air would take care of any electrostatics. The problem had to be mainly the sharp particles.

My impression is that electrostatic effect is what attracted more than expected particles to the suit in the first place during the EVA.  And once on the suit, the jagged edges kept them there.

[smartcooky]

https://history.nasa.gov/alsj/TM-2005-213610.pdf

Haven't had a chance to go through it all yet so there's probably more info in the rest of it about vacuum cleaners used on Apollo missions.

Thank you for the link to the PDF... that was a fascinating read, especially the documentation at the end showing all the references to dust in the Apollo Mission Reports and Technical Debriefings. I knew dust had been a problem, but didn't really have any idea just how much havoc it created.

This just shows that Gene Cernan wasn't kidding when he said that “dust is the number one concern in returning to the moon.”

This PDF was dated 2005... its amazing to think that even after ~35 years, the actions of the Apollo crew and the data they collected is still being analysed with an eye to the future.