LARGE AREA DUST COLLECTION - on the International Space Station

The Large Area Dust Collection (LADC), > 10 m(2) of instrumented silica aerogel mounted externally on the International Space Station, will capture and return large dust particles intercepted in Earth orbit. The uniqueness of LADC is that it carries a self-contained acoustic impact recording and locationing system to offer the opportunity to determine the particles' trajectories nondestructively and, for the first time, an opportunity to ascertain the particles' parent sources. Another uniqueness of LADC is that the flight cost for space deployment, integration and Earth return will be provided by the Department of Defense (DoD) Space Test Program (STP). LAD-C flight will also provide statistical significant samples of similar to thirty 100 mu m large extraterrestrial particles and the retrieval of samples themselves for detailed Earth based laboratory analysis to determine the chemical and physical nature of the particles.