Development and Testing Of An  Autonomous Regolith Excavation and Delivery System

Boucher, Dale; Atwell, Tom; Theiss, Ronny; Armstrong, Rob; Benigni, Sam

doi:10.2514/6.2011-431

Cited by 7 publications

(3 citation statements)

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“…For specificity, we have described the chemical plants using particular masses, power levels, and production rates after examining several sources of data. These include analyses of lunar chemical plants (Mendell 1985, Taylor andCarrier 1993) and the actual construction and performance of lunar chemical plants that our team and collaborators have recently field tested on Mauna Kea in 2008 and 2010 (Boucher et al 2011;Captain et al 2010;Gustafson et al 2010a;Gustafson et al 2010b;Muscatello et al 2009). The specifics are not too important as we will vary these numbers over wide ranges to demonstrate general feasibility of the bootstrapping process.…”

Section: Hardware Elements In Lunar Industrymentioning

confidence: 99%

Affordable, Rapid Bootstrapping of the Space Industry and Solar System Civilization

et al. 2013

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Advances in robotics and additive manufacturing have become game-changing for the prospects of space industry. It has become feasible to bootstrap a self-sustaining, self-expanding industry at reasonably low cost. Simple modeling was developed to identify the main parameters of successful bootstrapping. This indicates that bootstrapping can be achieved with as little as 12 metric tons (MT) landed on the Moon during a period of about 20 years. The equipment will be teleoperated and then transitioned to full autonomy so the industry can spread to the asteroid belt and beyond. The strategy begins with a sub-replicating system and evolves it toward full self-sustainability (full closure) via an in situ technology spiral. The industry grows exponentially due to the free real estate, energy, and material resources of space. The mass of industrial assets at the end of bootstrapping will be 156 MT with 60 humanoid robots, or as high as 40,000 MT with as many as 100,000 humanoid robots if faster manufacturing is supported by launching a total of 41 MT to the Moon. Within another few decades with no further investment, it can have millions of times the industrial capacity of the United States. Modeling over wide parameter ranges indicates this is reasonable, but further analysis is needed. This industry promises to revolutionize the human condition.

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Section: Hardware Elements In Lunar Industrymentioning

confidence: 99%

Affordable, Rapid Bootstrapping of the Space Industry and Solar System Civilization

et al. 2013

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“…In addition to differences of lower system mass and reduced-gravity environments, planetary excavation also compels a different concept of operations than terrestrial excavation does. Planned planetary excavation operations, exemplified by the multiple cycles of field tests conducted jointly by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA), all consist of excavating horizontal strips of regolith from the terrain surface (Sanders and Larson, 2011; Boucher et al, 2011). This contrasts with the scope of terrestrial mining that also includes digging into the sides of piles during underground load-haul-dump operations as well as directly excavating the vertical or sloped walls of open pit mines; these operations involve more complex excavation bucket trajectories.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Advantages of continuous excavation in lightweight planetary robotic operations

Skonieczny

Wettergreen

Whittaker

2016

The International Journal of Robotics Research

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Planetary excavator robots face unique and extreme engineering constraints relative to terrestrial counterparts. In space missions mass is always at a premium because it is the main driver behind launch costs. Lightweight operation, due to low mass and reduced gravity, hinders excavation and mobility by reducing the forces a robot can effect on its environment. This work shows that there is a quantifiable, non-dimensional threshold that distinguishes the regimes of lightweight and nominal excavation. This threshold is crossed at lower weights for continuous excavators (e.g. bucket-wheels) than discrete scrapers. This research introduces novel experimentation that for the first time subjects excavators to gravity offload (a cable pulls up on the robot with five-sixths its weight, to simulate lunar gravity) while they dig. A 300 kg excavator robot offloaded to 1/6 g successfully collects 0.5 kg/s using a bucket-wheel, with no discernible effect on mobility. For a discrete scraper of the same weight, production rapidly declines as rising excavation resistance stalls the robot. These experiments suggest caution in interpreting low-gravity performance predictions based solely on testing in Earth gravity. Experiments were conducted in GRC-1, a washed industrial silica-sand devoid of agglutinates and of the sub-75-micron basaltic fines that make up 40% of lunar regolith. The important dangers related to dust are thus not directly addressed. The achieved densities for experimentation are 1640 kg/m 3 (very loose/loose) and 1720 kg/m 3 (medium dense). This work develops a novel robotic bucket-wheel excavator, featuring unique direct transfer from bucket-wheel to dump bed as a solution to material transfer difficulties identified in past literature.

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“…In this field tests, all aspects of ISRU and lunar surface system integration were tested in an end-to-end manor, which led to it being referred to as "Dust to Thrust" [21]. This including autonomous/tele-operation of a Load-Haul-Dump rover excavator (CSA provided) [22], extracting 28 gms of oxygen …”

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confidence: 99%

Progress Made in Lunar In Situ Resource Utilization under NASA’s Exploration Technology and Development Program

Sanders

Larson

2013

J. Aerosp. Eng.

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Incorporation of In-Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU) and the production of mission critical consumables for 9 propulsion, power, and life support into mission architectures can greatly reduce the mass, cost, and risk of missions 10 leading to a sustainable and affordable approach to human exploration beyond Earth. ISRU and its products can 11 also greatly affect how other exploration systems are developed, including determining which technologies are 12 important or enabling. While the concept of lunar ISRU has existed for over 40 years, the technologies and systems 13 had not progressed much past simple laboratory proof-of-concept tests. With the release of the Vision for Space 14 Exploration in 2004 with the goal of harnessing the Moon"s resources, NASA initiated the ISRU Project in the 15 Exploration Technology Development Program (ETDP) to develop the technologies and systems needed to meet 16 this goal. In the five years of work in the ISRU Project, significant advancements and accomplishments occurred in 17 several important areas of lunar ISRU. Also, two analog field tests held in Hawaii in 2008 and 2010 demonstrated 18 all the steps in ISRU capabilities required along with the integration of ISRU products and hardware with 19 propulsion, power, and cryogenic storage systems. This paper will review the scope of the ISRU Project in the 20 ETDP, ISRU incorporation and development strategies utilized by the ISRU Project, and ISRU development and 21 test accomplishments over the five years of funded project activity.

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Development and Testing Of An Autonomous Regolith Excavation and Delivery System

Cited by 7 publications

References 1 publication

Affordable, Rapid Bootstrapping of the Space Industry and Solar System Civilization

Affordable, Rapid Bootstrapping of the Space Industry and Solar System Civilization

Advantages of continuous excavation in lightweight planetary robotic operations

Progress Made in Lunar In Situ Resource Utilization under NASA’s Exploration Technology and Development Program

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