Excavation and Conveying Technologies for Space Applications

Abstract

A rising number of companies and organisations are researching space technologies supporting extraterrestrial life. Whether Moon or Mars, the number of rocket launches is increasing year by year. The majority of National Space Agencies are planning exploration missions with fully autonomous robots, which can conduct several studies about the composition of the lunar dust. Especially the extraction of oxygen from the moon dust, called regolith, is of great interest. Also many other projects are planned. But the initial step of all processes is often forgotten: it is the supply of raw materials. Therefore, a closer look at the possibilities of excavating and conveying regolith has been taken. The research ranges from concept development, calculation to simulation and designing a robotic system.

Geotechnical and Shear Behavior of Novel Lunar Regolith Simulants TUBS-M, TUBS-T, and TUBS-I

“…Considering the low gravity on the surface of the Moon (1.62 m/s 2 ), lunar dust formation and migration plays an even bigger role, as there are large numbers of fine particles and they settle only slowly. Furthermore, lunar dust is known to become highly electrostatically charged, sticking to surfaces and thus, damaging equipment [ 97 ] and affecting lunar rover movement [ 28 , 98 , 99 , 100 ].…”

“…Furthermore, it can be observed that the cohesion in general rises with increasing precompaction stress (compare Table A2 ). Hence, the further away from the soil surface and the deeper in the regolith bed, the more cohesive the lunar (simulant) soil behaves [ 97 ]. The high values obtained in the case of 15 kPa for the size fractions >500 µm are due to the mechanical entanglement of the particles in the carriers of the shear cell lid.…”