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The 2010 Field Demonstration of the Solar Carbothermal Reduction of Regolith to Produce OxygenThe Moon and other space exploration destinations are comprised of a variety of oxygen-bearing minerals, providing a virtually unlimited quantity of raw material which can be processed to produce oxygen. One attractive method to extract oxygen from the regolith is the carbothermal reduction process, which is not sensitive to variations in the mineral composition of the regolith. It also creates other valuable resources within the processed regolith, such as iron and silicon metals. Using funding from NASA, ORBITEC recently built and tested the Carbothermal Regolith Reduction Module to process lunar regolith simulants using concentrated solar energy. This paper summarizes the experimental test results obtained during a demonstration of the system at a lunar analog test site on the Mauna Kea volcano on Hawaii in February 2010.
Document ID
20110005526
Acquisition Source
Kennedy Space Center
Document Type
Conference Paper
Authors
Gustafson, R. J.
(Orbital Technologies Corp. Madison, WI, United States)
White, B. C.
(Orbital Technologies Corp. Madison, WI, United States)
Fidler, M. J.
(Orbital Technologies Corp. Madison, WI, United States)
Muscatello, Anthony C.
(NASA Kennedy Space Center Cocoa Beach, FL, United States)
Date Acquired
August 25, 2013
Publication Date
June 8, 2010
Subject Category
Man/System Technology And Life Support
Report/Patent Number
KSC-2010-088
Meeting Information
Meeting: First Joint Meeting of the Space Resources Roundtable and the Planetary and Terrestrial Mining Sciences Symposium
Location: Golden, CO
Country: United States
Start Date: June 8, 2010
End Date: June 10, 2010
Funding Number(s)
CONTRACT_GRANT: NNK09EA89C
Distribution Limits
Public
Copyright
Public Use Permitted.
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