Adapting Novel Terrestrial Mining Technologies for Lunar Excavation

OffWorld is developing a system architecture to accomplish difficult tasks in harsh environments on earth, the moon, and beyond. Features of the swarm robotic industrial toolkit include a modular architecture, a common software stack, and shared AI and ML methodologies. OffWorld is developing these capabilities in revenue-generating markets on earth for adaptation off planet to the Lunar environment. By leveraging simultaneous and parallel development paths for terrestrial and Lunar applications, OffWorld can rapidly develop, test, and operationalize the variety of capabilities necessary to deploy a functional Lunar excavation system. By commercializing large terrestrial markets in the mining and infrastructure sectors, OffWorld can build these capabilities primarily with revenue earned from commercial contracts and augmented by investment and other capital opportunities. OffWorlds technology roadmap includes parallel development pathways of terrestrial and space capabilities to target specific hardware, software, and AI/ML functions. At the end of each of these projects, the hardware, software, and automation advances inform a data-driven evolution of the system architecture and CONOPs, until the system is ready for a demo in the Lunar environment. This NASA Phase II project affords the opportunity to continue refinement of the excavation toolset including the mechanical tooling and the force application approach, as well as the mobility approach and the control software for excavation. These lessons will incorporate into the full system design and move the architecture much closer to deployment. Once the applications of excavation and transport are refined and tested, additional functions will be added to the growing skill set of capabilities. The modular architecture of the OffWorld platform, combined with common software and AI methodologies enable rapid development of additional species of robots that can be used in additional industrial use cases. NASA’s focus on the ARTEMIS program, Moon to Mars, and the overall mission to explore our solar system make it clear that a robotic workforce capable of lunar surface excavation is a key step toward success. Lunar ISRU for propellant production is key to developing Lunar surface infrastructure and capabilities.  Propellant production will support most future NASA missions, as well as being fundamental to nearly every use case in the emerging commercial space market. Both water and oxygen are crucial for human exploration of the moon and the solar system.  Objectives of our Phase 1 project included maturing a conceptual design to adapt current OffWorld terrestrial mining robotic species for excavation operations on the surface of the Moon while considering the unique challenges presented by the lunar environment.  Architecture must account for the variations in the science of lunar geology.  OffWorld will incorporate lessons learned from current terrestrial mining programs while adapting architecture to maximize durability of individual components as well as full system reliability.  Technical objectives: Development of a set of chisel and collection designs that are optimized for a range of potential lunar substrate that the excavator could face in the permanently shadowed regions Test and design a percussive excavation device that will work in a vacuum to account for the lunar environmental Create a mobility platform that that will house the excavation subsystem as well as pertinent life support subsystems. The mobility platform will have to balance mass constraints for launch vehicle design but also be robust and reliable enough to handle excavation forces Machine Learning software that can optimize the excavation routine to account for attack angles, distance on attacks, attack force, and tool change to create the highest performing excavation rate and to compensate for current lack of lunar geology. Deliverables: Conceptual design and development plan for an autonomous a lunar excavator bot Analysis on feasibility of scaling the performance of the robotic system to meet icy regolith excavation requirements Demonstration of the excavation technology and approach Comparative analysis of the performance of identified algorithms on rad-hardened CPU/GPU and comparable commercial CPU/GPU and Assessment of Algorithms that work on space rated CPU/GPUs Demonstration of Algorithms for optimizing excavation rate based on different materials

A major NASA application for this system is the excavation of regolith from the lunar surface.  This layer of regolith can be removed, transported and processed for production of water, oxygen, and hydrogen components that can be used as propellant.  Additionally, oxygen and water will be necessary for human consumption to support NASA exploration activities.  More advanced versions of the OffWorld robotic squads will be able to extract additional volatiles and other materials from the regolith to be used in other industrial applications. Crucial commercial commodities in the developing cis-lunar economy are likely to be propellant, human consumables, energy, and mobility.  These materials and services will be necessary for virtually every commercial application. OffWorld will be able to adapt its modular systems into a variety of commercial use cases in mining, infrastructure, and transportation.

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