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NewSpace features the dawn of the age of space resources

Illustration showing concept of operations of the RedWater mining system for water extraction on Mars developed by Honeybee Robotics. Credits: Mellerowicz et al. via New Space

The editorial in the latest issue of New Space, coauthored by two of SSP’s favorite ISRU stars, Kevin Cannon and George Sowers, describes the dawning age of space resource utilization. Cannon, who guest edits this issue, and Sowers are joined by the rest of the leadership team of the graduate program in Space Resources at the The Colorado School of Mines: Program Director Angel Abbud-Madrid and professor Chris Dreyer. The program, created in 2017, has over 120 students currently enrolled. These are the scientists, engineers, economists, entrepreneurs and policymakers that will be leading the economic development of the high frontier, creating the companies and infrastructure for in situ resource utilization that will enable affordable and prosperous space settlement.

How can regolith on the Moon and Mars be refined into useful building materials? What are the methods for extracting water and oxygen from other worlds for life support systems and rocket fuel? Is it legal to do so? Will private property rights be granted through unilateral legislation? What will space settlers eat? The answers to all these questions and more are addressed in this issue, many of the articles free to access.

One of my favorite pieces, the source of this post’s featured image, is on the RedWater system for harvesting water on Mars. This technology, inspired by the proven Rodwell system in use for sourcing drinking water at the south pole, was developed by Honeybee Robotics, just acquired by Blue Origin earlier this year. End-to-end validation of the system under simulated Mars conditions demonstrated that water could be harvested from below an icy subsurface and pumped to a tank up on the surface.

We need to start thinking about these technologies now so that plans are ready for implementation once a reliable, affordable transportation system comes on line in the next few years led by companies such as SpaceX and others. Sowers has been working on thermal ice mining on cold worlds throughout the solar system for some time, predicting that water will be “the oil of space”. Cannon has been featured previously on SSP with his analytical tools related to lunar mining, the Pinwheel Magma Reactor for synthetic geology and plans for feeding millions of people on Mars.

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Masten’s Rocket Mining System

Artist depiction of a lander descending to the lunar surface carrying a rover housing Masten’s Rocket Mining System. Credits: Masten Space Systems

Called RocketM for Resource Ore Concentrator using Kinetic Energy Targeted Mining, Masten Space Systems has partnered with Honeybee Robotics and Lunar Outpost to design a novel system for blasting ice out of lunar regolith for ISRU under NASA’s Break the Ice Lunar Challenge program.

Lunar Outpost rover decending to the lunar surface down a ramp deployed off a Masten lander. Credits: Masten Space Systems

RocketM equipment would be housed aboard a Lunar Outpost rover delivered to lunar surface via Masten’s lunar lander. After unloading, the rover would be robotically navigated by a geologic team to an excavation site in the Aitken Basin near the Moon’s south pole. Upon arrival over the target area, the RocketM dome is extended down to the surface to create a seal over the regolith. A rocket is then ignited in a series of 1/2 second pulses fluidizing the regolith into icy grains which are conveyed out of the dome via a Honeybee Robotics PlanetVac pneumatic sampling system for processing. Beneficiation of the particles is accomplished using an Aqua Factorem process for separation into purified ice and other useful components. Aqua Factorem has been covered by SSP in a previous post. The whole process would only take 5-10 minutes.

A view of the inner workings of RocketM showing a centrally located pressure dome extending down to form a seal on the lunar surface. Credits: Masten Space Systems
Cutaway view showing a 100lb thrust rocket engine firing half-second bursts to heat the regolith to a depth of 2 meters releasing icy grains for processing to extract water. Credits: Masten Space Systems.

The stored water can subsequently be electrolyzed using solar energy into hydrogen and oxygen for lunar operations. What is so exciting about this ISRU system is that the rocket engine can be refueled by the mined products enabling an estimated useful life of 5 years.

Masten has tested the system using simulated lunar regolith providing groundwork toward optimizing conditions within the pressure dome. Further testing is needed at the system level to validate flight readiness.

As stated on Masten’s blog: “Usable as drinking water, rocket fuel, and other vital resources, lunar ice extraction is critical to maintain a sustained presence on the Moon and allow future missions to Mars and beyond. It can also be used in conjunction with other volatiles found in lunar regolith, such as oxygen and methane, to support energy, construction, and manufacturing needs. There’s a lot of promise – water excavation is just step one!”

Watch Masten’s video describing the system.