Materials exposed to lunar regolith dust and other environmental factors on the Moon may suffer permanent damage, risking catastrophic failures. Lunar dust poses the greatest threat. Preventive measures are crucial, with principles emerging to deter dust accumulation in vacuum conditions. Charging of dust and surfaces significantly affects adhesion. Charging sources include photoemission, solar wind, and secondary electron emission from Earth's magnetosphere, resulting in positive charge on the dayside and negative charge on the nightside [1].

In framework of NASA's "Regolith Adherence Characterization (RAC) Payload" project [2], we initiated a program on conducting in our Lunar Environment Simulator experiments on interaction of lunar dust simulants with materials similar to the RAC Payload experiment [3]. As part of this program, we conducted a series of experiments to understand the effects of charges accumulating on dust simulants and the surfaces they interact with on the adhesion and mitigation of dust.

We adapted a number of methods to charge the dust, - tribological, vacuum ultraviolet and plasma, and used a nanocoulomb meter set-up to evaluate the dust charge. A rotating disk sample holder enhances dust flow uniformity. In the experiments we measured the dust charge acquired under different conditions, with the aim to understand interaction models. This paper presents initial findings and discusses relevant models.

• J. E. Colwell et al, (2007). Lunar Surface: Dust Dynamics and Regolith Mechanics, Reviews of Geophysics, 45, RG2006 / 2007, pp. 1 – 26, Paper # 2005RG000184.
• https://news.satnews.com/2023/01/11/aegis-aerospace-racs-up-their-1st-lunar-payload-delivery/ - Aegis Aerospace RACs up their 1st lunar payload delivery January 11, 2023.
• J. Kleiman, et al (2022) Regolith adherence characterization (RAC) experiment on the Moon and it's ground-based simulation: Materials Issues, Joint International Conference on Protection of Materials from Space Environment, ISMSE15/ICPMSE13 , 18 -23 September, 2022 Leiden, The Netherlands, https://iopscience.iop.org/issue/1757-899X/1287/1 .