Design of a Secondary Volatile Release & Storage ISRU System

The primary goal of this project was to develop a design for a laboratory breadboard system to measure and collect solar wind implanted volatiles, released due to particle-particle and particle-surface interactions during the beneficiation and conveying of regolith, in a lunar ISRU system. If not addressed, NASA could lose over 20 kg of solar wind volatiles (mostly hydrogen and helium) per year in the case of a pilot carbothermal ISRU plant. In terms of launch cost, these volatiles (assuming $500 k/kg to the Moon) are worth more than $10 million per year or about $125 k/ton handled. A three-phase approach was proposed for t he project. The approach included discrete element modeling, prototype design, and particle attrition testing. Two prototype designs were developed, one for a helical vibratory conveyor and one for a pneumatic conveyor. Particle attrition tests were performed with the vibratory conveyor prototype. These tests resulted in measurements showing the creation of regolith fines due to conveying and release of volatiles from regolith simulant due to conveying. Future work is needed to meet the key performance parameters (KPP) of volatiles collection, system power per regolith flow rate, and system mass per regolith flow rate, while advancing the TRL