National Aeronautics and

Space Administration

www.nasa.gov

PHILOSOPHY:

Swamp Works is a hands-on, 

lean development environment 

for innovation at NASA’s Kennedy 

Space Center in Florida. Swamp 

Works develops innovative exploration 

mission solutions through a highly collaborative 

approach, leveraging partnerships across NASA, industry, and academia.

CAPABILITIES:

The goal of Swamp Works is to accelerate innovation for NASA to benefit space exploration and 

everyone living on Earth. Researchers and scientists take ideas from concept, through development, and 

into application. They perform repeated testing in the early stages to incorporate design improvements 

as early as possible in the development phase. This development approach helps provide government 

and commercial space ventures with technologies needed to support NASA’s missions, including 

working and living on the surface of the Moon and eventually on other bodies in our solar system.

Current capabilities include facilities and world-class expertise from the Exploration Research and 

Technology Programs at Kennedy in such areas as granular mechanics and regolith operations; 

electrostatics and surface physics; robotics integration, checkout, and assembly; and advanced 

manufacturing. Staffed with engineers, physicists, and chemists, the developers use a “make it, test it, 

and improve it” model of work, in which projects often undergo several generations of builds, each an 

inexpensive attempt to improve on the one before. This approach also maintains continuity of knowledge 

between generations of designs because the same team works on many phases of development. This 

iterative approach provides multiple incremental advances 

during development that can lead to quantum leaps in 

technology advancement. Open collaboration allows 

researchers to learn from each other and ask questions 

during a technology’s development.

Technologies developed at Swamp Works play a major 

role across multiple programs, including NASA’s Artemis 

program. These advancements help provide humans with 

the capabilities that will be needed for living and exploring 

on the surfaces of the Moon, and, one day, Mars.

Swamp Works investigations are funded through NASA’s 

Space Technology, Exploration Systems Development, and 

Space Operations Mission Directorates; as well as NASA’s 

Mission Support Directorate, various NASA centers, and/or 

SWAMP WORKS

through partnership agreements with private industry.
AREAS OF FOCUS:

Swamp Works performs development 

work in a wide range of areas 

including:

1. Granular Mechanics and 

Regolith Operations: This team 

studies the mechanics of materials 

in a launch pad environment. The 

focus is on the mechanics of soil 

at lunar and Martian spaceports; 

how to excavate the soil to 

prepare berms, landing pads, 

and roads; and how to model the 

blowing of soil or other materials 

in a rocket exhaust plume to 

predict blast effects. This area 

also develops technologies for 

handling lunar and Martian regolith, including excavator technologies and the pneumatic transport and 

magnetic handling of soil. The team studies the basic physics and geology of lunar and Martian soil to 

support soil-handling technologies, including particle sizing, particle shapes, bulk mechanical properties of 

the soil, soil compaction, field sampling technologies, and laboratory testing protocols.

2. Electrostatics and Surface Physics: This team performs scientific investigations to protect flight hardware 

and launch equipment from the phenomenon of electrostatic discharges, commonly known as sparks. In 

addition, the team studies lunar and Martian dust and the physics behind the particles’ dynamic electrical 

states. They also develop new technologies that leverage electrostatics to solve problems, such as filtering 

dust from air or repelling dust off surfaces using electrostatic forces.

Contact Information

Tim Griffin, Ph.D.

Associate Director for Research and Technology

Exploration Research and Technology Programs

timothy.p.griffin@nasa.gov • (321) 213-0669 Exploration Research and

Technology Programs

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