Small Business Innovation Research/Small Business Tech Transfer
Comprehensive Modeling for Off-Earth Mining Optimization and Resource Processing
Project Description
The multi-months duration and energy constraints of the Earth�Mars journey are forcing an evolution toward the self-sufficiency of human crews in their readiness to adapt to changing circumstances and survive emergencies so far from Earth. The situation is akin to the one faced by the first waves of people brave enough to explore new continents during the course of human history. Limited by the capabilities of their ship or caravan on a long journey, their fate was inevitably tied to their ability to learn, adapt, and use their new environment and its resources as quickly as possible. The planned In Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU) can yield tangible benefits for NASA pioneering missions currently studied under the Evolvable Mars Campaign. Robotic explorations have now established the wide distribution of water in the Martian subsurface with large variations in concentrations and geological contexts (ice-rock mixtures, polyhydrated minerals). Mining and processing Martian water-bearing minerals may prove key to the ultimate success of long stays on Mars via life support and chemical synthesis of methane ascent fuel and oxygen. The prospect of exploring, developing, and exploiting mineral reserves on another planetary body evokes many technical and economic challenges, which often lead to decision paralysis in strategic planners willing to consider ISRU in deep-space missions. This Phase I work will provide NASA with a comprehensive modeling tool built to describe the processes of Off-Earth mining and materials processing in their geological context and deliver comparative technical and economic results on the optimized operations and technologies. It is a unique innovative tool built on the expertise and best practices of the terrestrial mining industry in synergy with expert space technologists in ISRU. It will provide NASA decision-makers with a means to identify and correlate major gaps in knowledge to plan technology investments and knowledge-gathering missions
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Anticipated Benefits
A number of potential NASA applications exist for the proposed Space Resource Utilization Planning Model (SRUPM) and its sub-elements: NASA's Evolvable Mars Campaign can use this tool in their effort to define the optimum operational concepts and associated technologies that will make regolith-based ISRU economically and technically feasible for the support of all phases of the campaign of human missions to the Mars surface and the Mars system, including the moons Phobos and Deimos where water reserves are suspected. The modeling and planning tool will also be useful for evaluating best approaches to the potential exploitation of a water- and organic-rich carbonaceous chondrite (CC) asteroid to be placed in a capture Lunar Distant Retrograde Orbit by the Asteroid Retrieval Mission; NASA directorates can make use of the tool to examine the feasibility of exploiting potential water reserves on the Moon based on well-known geological contexts and take advantage of the adaptability of the model to assess the impact of commercial resource extraction operations on the overall economic viability; NASA's strategic planning will find a versatile tool to identify technology gaps and critical knowledge gaps for planning technology investments in high-impact game-changing areas such as instruments for the exploration of mineral reserves, new resource exploitation approaches using autonomous regolith resource robotics, and long-term reliability factors of equipment on other planets.
Private corporations created in the last 5 years to discover, explore and ultimately exploit the resources of planetary bodies with rocky surfaces will find this modeling and optimization tool very useful. The viability of the business cases of such corporations often rest on large uncertainties with respect to the knowledge of the geological environment of the mineral reserves they are seeking on asteroids, the Moon, in the Mars system, and further into the solar system. This tool will provide the ability to integrate proprietary data owned by the user-company with sound mining and mineral processing approaches built-in the model to obtain estimates on economic viability with higher degree of confidence. More »
Private corporations created in the last 5 years to discover, explore and ultimately exploit the resources of planetary bodies with rocky surfaces will find this modeling and optimization tool very useful. The viability of the business cases of such corporations often rest on large uncertainties with respect to the knowledge of the geological environment of the mineral reserves they are seeking on asteroids, the Moon, in the Mars system, and further into the solar system. This tool will provide the ability to integrate proprietary data owned by the user-company with sound mining and mineral processing approaches built-in the model to obtain estimates on economic viability with higher degree of confidence. More »
Project Library
Primary U.S. Work Locations and Key Partners
| Organizations Performing Work | Role | Type | Location |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ascentech Enterprises, Inc. | Lead Organization |
Industry
Minority-Owned Business,
Small Disadvantaged Business (SDB)
|
|
Kennedy Space Center
(KSC)
|
Supporting Organization | NASA Center | Kennedy Space Center, Florida |
| Virginia Tech | Supporting Organization | Industry | Blacksburg, Virginia |
Primary U.S. Work Locations
-
Florida
-
Texas
-
Virginia
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