Effects of Extraterrestrial Gravity on Soil Fluidization Imposed by an Ultrasonic Probe

The technology under development is tooling for extraterrestrial mining or prospecting machinery that leverages the use of forced, resonant vibration to fluidize soil around the leading edge of a probe or shovel. This allows the tool to then move through a dynamic, fluidized soil making it easier for the tool to progress through the soil with less required force. This technology is inherently different from percussive systems or reciprocating systems that use voice coil actuators or similar. The resonant vibration is continuous, unlike percussive, and has a very small amplitude around 54 μm, unlike reciprocating systems that can achieve centimeters of stroke at low frequencies.

Summary of Flight Test
2024-04-15 NASA Glenn Research Center partnered with Concordia University through an International Space Act Agreement to investigate the use of an ultrasonically vibrating blade in lunar regolith simulant at lunar and Martian gravities. The use of vibratory tools is known to reduce forces between the vibrating tool and the soil on Earth. Reducing tooling forces means that reaction forces experienced by the system are also lowered indicating the potential for system mass savings. This flight set out to establish what magnitude of force reduction can be expected from an ultrasonic tool on the Moon and Mars. Regolith interaction including excavation will be an important part of NASA’s use of lunar and Martian regoliths for resource development to support long duration missions to both bodies.

Directly supports lunar exploration and In-Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU) by developing efficient lunar excavation tooling that encourages commodity production on the lunar surface. Reduction of excavation forces for a given tool can enable vehicle mass reduction and thereby reduction of launch costs. In the current Artemis architecture, the production of lunar resources, especially water, directly enables the development of cislunar space by reducing the burden on resupply for a critical commodity to astronaut life support and eventually rocket fuel. Utilization of lunar sourced propellants has the potential to dramatically lower the cost of transportation within the cislunar environment, thus dramatically lowering the barriers to entry for a number of cislunar based activities.

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