Design of a Lunar Solar Wind Volatiles Extraction System

Olson, Aaron; Santarius, J. F.; Kulcinski, G.L.

doi:10.17307/wsc.v1i1.100

Cited by 4 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 8 publications

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“…Three designs of lunar 3 He miners have also been developed since 1988 at the FTI (Gajda 2006;Sviatoslavsky and Jacobs 1988;Sviatoslavsky 1993). Recently, a research effort on demonstrating the lunar 3 He extraction process outlined in the past miner designs, in a laboratory setting, has commenced (Olson 2013;Olson et al 2015). The current progress of this effort will be further discussed in the following sections of this paper.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Recent Progress in Lunar Helium-3 Extraction Research

Olson

2016

Proc. Wisc. Space Conf.

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Research is ongoing to develop a prototype lunar volatiles extraction system that will demonstrate a process for acquiring helium-3 for future fusion power plants that would produce little to no radioactive waste, and other volatile gases that can be used for life support in space. The prototype system is called the Helium Extraction and Acquisition Test bed (HEAT). Testing of HEAT will focus on obtaining information on the rate of 3 He extraction possible and to what extent thermal energy recovery can be employed in this kind of volatile extraction system.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Recent Progress in Lunar Helium-3 Extraction Research

Olson

2016

Proc. Wisc. Space Conf.

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“…Unfortunately, the Earth’s atmosphere and its magnetic field repel this element, and only traces of this element exist on Earth. The Moon, by contrast, has accumulated large amounts of

He on the uppermost layer of its surface [ 3 ] (lunar regolith), bringing researchers on Earth to consider the possibility of mining this element from the Moon [ 4 , 5 , 6 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

An ACOR-Based Multi-Objective WSN Deployment Example for Lunar Surveying

López-Matencio

2016

Sensors

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Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) can gather in situ real data measurements and work unattended for long periods, even in remote, rough places. A critical aspect of WSN design is node placement, as this determines sensing capacities, network connectivity, network lifetime and, in short, the whole operational capabilities of the WSN. This paper proposes and studies a new node placement algorithm that focus on these aspects. As a motivating example, we consider a network designed to describe the distribution of helium-3 (3He), a potential enabling element for fusion reactors, on the Moon. 3He is abundant on the Moon’s surface, and knowledge of its distribution is essential for future harvesting purposes. Previous data are inconclusive, and there is general agreement that on-site measurements, obtained over a long time period, are necessary to better understand the mechanisms involved in the distribution of this element on the Moon. Although a mission of this type is extremely complex, it allows us to illustrate the main challenges involved in a multi-objective WSN placement problem, i.e., selection of optimal observation sites and maximization of the lifetime of the network. To tackle optimization, we use a recent adaptation of the ant colony optimization (ACOR) metaheuristic, extended to continuous domains. Solutions are provided in the form of a Pareto frontier that shows the optimal equilibria. Moreover, we compared our scheme with the four-directional placement (FDP) heuristic, which was outperformed in all cases.

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Helium Implantation into JSC-1A Lunar Simulant for Volatile Extraction System Testing

Olson

2017

Proc. Wisc. Space Conf.

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Research is ongoing to develop an experimental volatiles extraction system that can demonstrate a heating process for releasing helium-3 (³He) and other valuable lunar volatiles from lunar regolith. Beyond the Apollo and Luna program lunar samples, there is no regolith or regolith simulant implanted with solar wind volatiles that is available. A device, named the Solar Wind Implanter (SWIM), has been developed to implant helium into batches of JSC-1A simulant. It uses a voltage difference between planar electrodes to accelerate helium ions (up to the average solar-wind speed of 450 km/s) into a thin, falling sheet of regolith simulant. Initial implantation tests have been conducted and SWIM is being calibrated by performing tests to determine electrode current under varying operational parameters and by measuring the dose and temperature release pattern of helium in implanted samples.

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Design of a Lunar Solar Wind Volatiles Extraction System

Cited by 4 publications

References 8 publications

Recent Progress in Lunar Helium-3 Extraction Research

Recent Progress in Lunar Helium-3 Extraction Research

An ACOR-Based Multi-Objective WSN Deployment Example for Lunar Surveying

Helium Implantation into JSC-1A Lunar Simulant for Volatile Extraction System Testing

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