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Apr 26, 2012
Pneumatic Regolith Transfer Systems for In Situ Resource Utilization
Authors: Robert P. Mueller [email protected], Ivan I. Townsend, III [email protected], and James G. Mantovani [email protected]Author Affiliations
Publication: Earth and Space 2010: Engineering, Science, Construction, and Operations in Challenging Environments
Abstract
One aspect of In-Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU) in a lunar environment is to extract oxygen and other elements from the minerals that make up the lunar regolith. Typical ISRU oxygen production processes include but are not limited to hydrogen reduction, carbothermal and molten oxide electrolysis. All of these processes require the transfer of regolith from a supply hopper into a reactor for chemical reaction processing, and the subsequent extraction of the reacted regolith from the reactor. This paper will discuss recent activities in the NASA ISRU project involved with developing pneumatic conveying methods to achieve lunar regolith simulant transfer under 1-g and 1/6-g gravitational environments. Examples will be given of hardware that has been developed and tested by NASA on reduced gravity flights. Lessons learned and details of pneumatic regolith transfer systems will be examined as well as the relative performance in a 1/6th G environment.
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© 2010 American Society of Civil Engineers.
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Published online: Apr 26, 2012
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Surface Systems Office, National Aeronautics & Space Administration (NASA), Mailcode: NE-S, Kennedy Space Center, FL 32899, USA. E-mail: [email protected]
Arctic Slope Regional Corporation (ASRC) Aerospace, Mailcode: ASRC-9, Kennedy Space Center, FL 32899, USA. E-mail: [email protected]
Surface Systems Office, National Aeronautics & Space Administration (NASA), Mailcode: NE-S, Kennedy Space Center, FL 32899, USA. E-mail: [email protected]
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