National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Small Business Innovation Research & Technology Transfer 2008 Program Solicitations

TOPIC: X3 Lunar In Situ Resource Utilization

X3.01 Lunar Regolith Excavation and Material Handling
X3.02 Oxygen Production from Lunar Regolith
X3.03 Lunar ISRU Development and Precursor Activities

The purpose of In Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU) is to harness and utilize resources at the site of exploration to create products and services which can enable and significantly reduce the mass, cost, and risk of near-term and long-term space exploration. In particular, the ability to make propellants, life support consumables, fuel cell reagents, and radiation shielding can significantly reduce the cost, mass, and risk of sustained human activities beyond Earth. The ability to modify the lunar landscape for safer landing, transfer of payloads from the lander to an outpost, dust generation mitigation, and infrastructure emplacement and buildup are also extremely important for long-term lunar operations. To perform these tasks on the lunar surface, detailed knowledge of the terrain, local minerals and potential resources, and subsurface futures is important for planning and operations at the start of establishing long-term human presence on the lunar surface. Lastly, since ISRU systems and operations have never been demonstrated before in missions, it is important that ISRU concepts and technologies be evaluated under relevant conditions (1/6 g and vacuum) as well as anchored through modeling to lunar soil and environmental conditions. With this in mind, the ISRU Project within the Exploration Technology Development Program (ETDP) has initiated development and testing of hardware and systems in three main focus areas: (1) Regolith Excavation, Handling and Material Transportation; (2) Oxygen Extraction from Regolith; and (3) ISRU Development & Precursor Activities. The purpose of the following subtopics is to develop and demonstrate hardware and software technologies that can be added to on-going analysis and ISRU capability development and demonstration activities in ETDP to meet Outpost architecture and surface manipulation objectives for near and long term human exploration of the Moon. 

The lunar regolith excavation, handling, and material transportation subtopic includes all aspects of lunar regolith handling for oxygen and other resource collection and site preparation and Outpost infrastructure emplacement, including tasks such as clearing/leveling landing areas and pathways, buildup of berms and burying of reactors or habitats for radiation protection. Excavation capabilities may involve excavation and collection of both unconsolidated and consolidated surface regolith. Hardware must be able to operable over broad temperature ranges (generally 110K to 400K) and in the presence of abrasive lunar regolith and partial-gravity environments. Expectations for maintenance by crew must be minimal and affordable. Therefore, general attributes desired for all proposed hardware include the following: lightweight, abrasion resistant, vacuum and large temperature variation compatible materials, low power, robust/low maintenance, and minimize dust generation/saltation during operation. Specific software and hardware for insertion into on-going ISRU Project development and demonstration activities include:

• Excavation hardware for oxygen production: Unconsolidated material, 17 kg/hr based on hydrogen reduction, <10 cm deep; avoid or mitigate rocks >5 cm diameter (See note on mobility platform below).
• Excavation hardware for deep digging: Consolidated material, 3 m deep and 1 meter in diameter at a minimum; (See mobility platform note below).
• Granular materials mixing and separation for reactor feedstock conditioning: remove material > 0.5 cm diameter before dumping into storage bin during excavation operation for oxygen extraction from regolith.
• Dust tolerant, lightweight mechanisms and actuators for excavation and material transport operations.
• Site preparation hardware, automation, and control for surface contouring and area clearing and leveling.
• Site preparation hardware, automation, and control for berm building; 3 meters tall; 45 degree slope minimum based on landing plume mitigation.

Phase 1 proposals should demonstrate technical feasibility of the technology and/or subsystem through laboratory validation of critical aspects of the innovation proposed, as well as the design and path toward delivering hardware/subsystems in Phase 2 for incorporation into existing development activities.

Proposers are encouraged to use the Lunar Sourcebook at a minimum for understanding lunar regolith material parameters in the design and testing of hardware proposed. To determine implement size and time required to complete tasks, proposers have three options for surface mobility: 1) part time use of NASA’s large crew rover currently under development (2000 kg mass, 1.33 m wide, 4.5 m long, and 0.2 m high chasse frame, 0 to 0.67 m frame height variation capability from surface), 2) operation on a smaller dedicated ISRU rover yet to be developed, 3) optimize vehicle size to minimize total system mass and power. For option 2, interface requirements for on-going development efforts will be provided after selection. For option 3, proposers may evaluate surface mobility aspects in their proposal but cannot exceed 35% of the budget for the proposed effort. 

• Move feedstock material from hopper on ground to 2 m height for reactor inlet hopper; 40 kg/hr; material size <0.5 cm diameter.
  
• Inlet/outlet regolith hopper design and valve/seal concepts with no gas leakage, 1000's of operating cycles with abrasive lunar material, and minimum heat loss.
  
• Methods and hardware for recovering heat energy from spent regolith to pre-heat inlet regolith; 1050°C spent regolith temp, 750°C inlet regolith starting temp; 20 kg/batch.
  
• Molten material removal from molten electrolysis; 5 to 10 kg per batch size.
  
• Non-eroding cathode/anode concepts for molten oxide electrolysis; 5 to 10 kg batch size.
  
• Water condensers that use the space environment for water condensation/separation with minimal energy usage.
  
• Gas Separators that provide low pressure drop separation of the system and product gas streams from impurities (e.g. HCl, HF, H₂S, SO₂); impurities in ppm quantities.
  
• Microchannel methanation reactors that convert a mixture of carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, and hydrogen to methane and water vapor with carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide consumed to the maximum extent possible.
  
• Advanced reactor concepts for carbothermal reduction or molten oxide electrolysis.
  

• Computer models to predict excavation-tool soil interaction and flow behavior of lunar regolith under vacuum conditions and 1/6 g for hardware design and performance prediction.
  
• Vacuum compatible geotechnical instruments to verify soil bin characteristics; instruments that can be mounted and operated from rovers for field testing are also of interest.
  
• Mineral beneficiation concepts to separate iron oxide-bearing material from bulk regolith; up to 20 kg/hr based on hydrogen reduction. Hardware/concepts need to be designed for compatibility with both 1/6 g flight experiments and ground vacuum experiments.
  
• Lunar regolith storage and granular flow devices and instruments to evaluate and characterize regolith behavior under 1/6 g flight and ground vacuum experimental conditions.
  
• Advanced excavation implement concepts and hardware that can utilized to evaluate implement/soil interaction characteristics under 1/6 g flight and ground vacuum conditions.
  
• Development of specialty lunar simulants for beneficiation and microwave processing of lunar regolith; proposals must estimate production costs per kilogram by end of Phase 1.
  
• Lunar surface stabilization and regolith binding methods (including but not limited to sintering and melting) for level areas and trench/berm walls; bearing strength and smoothness requirements are not currently established but should be considered in the proposal.
  
• Processing concepts for production of carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, and/or water from plastic trash and dried crew solid waste using solar thermal energy; in situ produced oxygen or other reagents/consumables must be identified and quantified; recycling schemes for reagents to minimize consumables should be evaluated.
  

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