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Completed TRL 6 (started at 4, targeting 6)
| A two phase approach will deliver two components. The first is the In-Situ Resource production of CO and H2 on Mars from a large format electrolysis stack that produces high-purity O2, H2 and CO. The second component, a methanation reactor will use the CO and H2 from electrolysis to produce CH4 at desired volumes.Key project goals are:1. Scaled the SOXE cell area to 5x the cell size of the MOXIE stack, 2. Demonstrated co-electrolysis of CO2-steam to syngas as well as dry CO2 electrolysis with 10-cell stacks, 3. Developed a methanation reactor sized for the syngas production of a full height stack, 4. Operated the methanation system with syngas from the OxEon laboratory infrastructure, over a 4 variable [GHSV, T, P, H2:CO], 3 level design of experiments (DOE), 5. Operated an integrated breadboard SOXE-methanation system 1000 hours at OxEon, 6. Operated the integrated breadboard SOXE-methanation system 100 hours in the JPL Mars atmosphere chamber, 7. Developed an ISRU variant SOXE cell and stack design with a sealed anode perimeter, 8. Established in-house capability for quantitative interconnect permeability testing, 9. Fabricated ISRU design stack components, 10. Assembled short (5 and 10-cell) and full height (52 and 65-cell) ISRU SOXE stacks, full height stacks are up to 33x the capacity of the MOXIE stack., 11. Explored alternative lower temperature methanation catalysts – Identified Ni-free alternate catalyst and determined it requires more effort for implementation, 12. Designed a compact thermosyphon-vapor chamber methanation reactor cooling system, 13. Operated new methanation reactor system 1,500 hours on laboratory utility syngas ,, 14. Operated tall ISRU stack 1,000+ hours in CO2-steam co-electrolysis and on dry CO2, 15. Operated integrated breadboard system 1,040 hours at OxEon, 16. Operated integrated breadboard system 100 hours in JPL Mars atmosphere chamber, 17. A single full size ISRU stack was tested for 2,493 total hours ,18. Key performance metric targets for oxygen purity, oxygen and methane production rates were all demonstrated. |
Carbon dioxide is the major constituent of the Mars atmosphere
enabling oxygen production directly from the atmosphere. Water
ice resources have been identified on Mars and the moon enabling
hydrogen and oxygen ISRU products. ISRU processing of both
CO2 and water enables production of O2 and CH4 propellants
needed for a Mars ascent vehicle capable of bringing human
explorers home from Mars. All system hardware beyond the core SOXE and methanation reactor internals demonstration in this project should be considered ground support equipment (GSE) at this stage of system development. The core SOXE and methanation reactor are validated as has the system process integration. The primary focus of flight hardware development will be thermal, fluid, and structural design, testing, and qualification. NASA JPL will test the end-to-end system in Mars relevent enviromental chamber, which it will increase the TRL from 4-5 in pgase A and 5-6 in phase B. Solid Oxide technology has been concider as lead technology for Mars ISRU for processing of Martian atmospher and water for production of LOX & LCH4.
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