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Wandering Water Extraction from Icy Lunar Micro Cold Traps

Presented by:

Ian Stuart Bartlett

Ian Stuart Bartlett

    UNSW ACSER

 

Andrew Dempster

    UNSW ACSER

 

    

 

    

 

    

 

    

 

    

 

    

 

    

 

    

 

    

 

    

 

    

 

    

    UNSW ACSER

 

We consider a novel, accessible potential target for water harvesting on the lunar surface and use a toy model to assess basic robotic mission requirements. The lunar polar permanently shadowed regions (PSRs) are known to contain water ice, and are a high-priority target for near-term resource extraction. However, operating in the PSRs presents a significant operational challenge. Recent modelling in planetary geology has suggested the presence of a large number of smaller PSRs, or micro-cold traps, with a size ranging from a few meters to tens of centimeters. Although one of these traps would not contain sufficient water to constitute a useful reserve, by moving over the surface and harvesting water from multiple micro-cold traps, a rover could build up a significant quantity of water. We construct a simplified model where the micro-cold traps are assumed to be craters of varying size. The spatial distribution of cold traps is modelled as a hard-core Matern process, with a variable radius given by a power-law distribution. We select a subset of craters, and plot traverse trajectories to determine the distance needed to collect ten tons of water. The viability of these missions as an alternate SRU strategy is discussed.

Category:

Space resource utilisation and space mining

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