Amelia Grieg U of Texas
Notes by Paul Fischer
Ablative Arc Mini in-situ resource utilization
Using controlled lightening bolts to mine the moon
Two options
Take everything with us
Or find ways to use things there
Propellants, oxygen, and silicon available on the moon
Lunar regolith is composed of many elements and lunar water ice frozen into various points on the moon
North and south lunar poles
Many challenges
Water found in areas permanently shadowed near the lunar pole
No option for high flow rates, and large losses through natural diffusion prices
Very fine and electrostatic lunar dust
The oblique arc mining approach begins with an electric arc and the electrons in the arc will come off in charged form meaning the regolith can be transported with no mining parts
Electric fields minimize losses from natural diffusion and no reliance
Focusing ion optics…
Moving equal velocity is important for the next step, and the beams will pass through a magnetic field through a permanent magnet
The particles will then be placed in a dedicated collection reservoir in direct path of the elements while metals and other solid materials will be placed on a collection plate
Entire system contained in a single skewer crawler
12 electrodes will be placed on the ring in the front
A circular region in front of the ring would be ready for collection and sorting
The arcs no longer reach the surface and begins arcing again
Single arc 1Hz can mine 131 kg per year, while estimates of a full scale mining system would require fore crawlers with 10 metric tons
The axis robotic arm would be the only moving parts other than mobility
Q: how to deal with charged dust particles in the electrostatic?
A: not as bad as much of the lunar dust and the crawler and collection system most will be drawn into the same … looking at a collection reservoir for dust, and the heavy dust particles. Other work has seen the regultih to be used for building materials
Q: how to deal with erosion of the arc electrodes?
A: in the video multiple sets and expansion of the erosion material, the collection materials were also … snap the electrode ring into place and use the same bulk vehicle
Q: how to deal with the oxygen produced?
A: oxygen has not been looked at yet, it is too much on top of everything else, looking at ablation and transport side of things, cryogenic collection of water vapor
Q: Would the process benefit from some sort of ideal feedstock? Are some soils or regolith more suitable for this method than others?
A: at this moment only a few regolith lunar simulates are available, the highland simulates are better for this particular system, which is all that we have used so far. Different regoliths and see if there are any differences there
Q; by what means would this be able to test the type quantity and charge?
A: the total mass that is ablated, and then a residual gas analyzer works very similarly to the general …. This gives us the relative ratios of the simulates, we also have a spectrometer set up and the products that are being set up as being transported through the chamber, with the three combined we get a good representation of what the arcs are
Q: once sorted, is the material charged first? Maintain the charge of the particles or not?
A: there is no reason to keep the particles in the charged form, that would be collection of the gas
Q: updated numbers as more tests are taken, power vs. how much you are going to be able to mine?
A: that is one of the biggest questions to answer in phase one, the values are still approximations, based on plasma thruster technology, to produce thrust instead of sorting it, slightly bigger for the full scale system, and there is no data on that, but once experimental results are sorted then the results can be updated to be more certain
Q: have you considered applications for the mars surface?
A: slightly higher formation would be easier to apply on mars than the moon even
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