  NASA has developed a "Figure of Merit" method to grade the fidelity of lunar
simulants for scientific and engineering purposes. Here we extend the method to
grade asteroid simulants, both regolith and cobble variety, and we apply the
method to the newly developed asteroid regolith and cobble simulant
UCF/DSI-CI-2. The reference material that is used to evaluate this simulant for
most asteroid properties is the Orgueil meteorite. Those properties are the
mineralogical and elemental composition, grain density, bulk density of
cobbles, magnetic susceptibility, mechanical strength of cobbles, and volatile
release patterns. To evaluate the regolith simulant's particle sizing we use a
reference model that was based upon the sample returned from Itokawa by
Hayabusa, the boulder count on Hayabusa, and four cases of disrupted asteroids
that indicate particle sizing of the subsurface material. Compared to these
references, the simulant has high figures of merit, indicating it is a good
choice for a wide range of scientific and engineering applications. We
recommend this methodology to the wider asteroid community and in the near
future will apply it to additional asteroid simulants currently under
development.
