As government agencies and commercial space companies gear up for the eventual return to the Moon, there is a focus on utilizing lunar resources to improve mission cost efficiency. One of, if not the most, valuable resources on the Moon is water ice located in the north and south lunar poles. Pete Carrato, our Technical Director and Bechtel Fellow Emeritus assembled a distinguished team of co-authors including Bechtel Fellows Gus Benz, and John Gülen and NASA scientist Robert Mueller to examine the process and energy demand to produce liquid hydrogen and oxygen from water ice. The paper also discusses considerations for the design of associated structures, systems, and components.
Pete presented our paper, A Process Plant for Producing Rocket Fuel from Lunar Ice at the ASME 2019 International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition. A copy of the slide deck can be viewed below.
