THE PROPOSED PROJECT INVESTIGATES PRELIMINARY DESIGNS OF HARDWARE AND EXPERIMENTS FOR LOW G / VACUUM TESTING OF REGOLITH HANDLING FOR REGOLITH DELIVERY TO A MOLTEN REGOLITH ELECTROLYSIS REACTOR MELT. THE TASKS OF THE PROJECT ARE AS FOLLOWS: A) PERFORM LITERATURE SEARCH ON VACUUM AND LOW G GRANULAR FLOW B) SUPPORT AND PROVIDE INPUT TO TRADE OF OPTIONS FOR GRAVITY-ASSISTED AND GRAVITY INDEPENDENT SOLUTIONS FOR REGOLITH FEED TO REACTOR BED PREPARATION MASS ADDITIONS TO MELT. C) SUPPORT AND PROVIDE INPUT TO PRELIMINARY DESIGN OF TEST DEVICES FOR LATER EXPERIMENTAL WORK (FY22) IN LOW G TEST PLATFORMS (PARABOLIC AIRCRAFT MICRO-G TEST FACILITY SUBORBITAL FLIGHTS.) D) PROVIDE DOE ANALYSIS INPUT USING DOE SOFTWARE (MINITAB) TO DEFINE OBSERVATIONS MEASUREMENTS TEST MATRIX ETC. E) CREATE AND MAKE SMALL BENCH SCALE REGOLITH TRANSFER PROTOTYPES TO DO QUICK EVALUATION OF CONCEPT TESTING.
$92,264FY2021National Aeronautics and Space AdministrationNASA
Michigan Technological University, Houghton MI