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Cis-Lunar Space Logistics Analysis

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Description

When you consider resource harvesting rovers likely won't last 20 years and are not likely to weigh less than VIPER, breakeven will never occur until large crews are living on the moon.  Again, if launch costs are high, we could not afford to send 1000s of people to the moon.  This is just one example of insufficiently explored trade space.  This is also why people quickly say that ISRU water must be used for lander refueling.  But what flight rate is necessary to achieve ROI?  What level of infrastructure is required to produce such consumption rates?  With what extraction efficiencies? How many EVAs and repressurization events (since they lose water at faster rates than within the Hab)? These will be studied parametrically.

Benefits

From previous studies on the economics of in-space transportation, it is clear that in-space propulsion performance is critical with high launch costs, but is of lessor ROI if launch costs are low.  It is intuitive that locally sourced commodities are high value if the cost to transport the commodities is high.   However, from just looking at extremes, with free mass delivery to the moon, it's simpler to launch water from Earth.  If launch costs are $1B per kg, and it we need lunar prospecting rovers, excavators, resource extractors, liquefaction plants, surface storage takes, propellant transfer vehicles or infrastructure, etc., it would be lower cost to simply send water at likely usage rates for the habitats.  With ISS demonstrating 98% water recovery, and therefore only needing ~20kg per year of new water supplied for average crew sizes of 4-6, more than 20 years of water can be provided to simply match the mass of sending the small VIPER prospecting rover. 

Details

ProgramCenter Innovation Fund: MSFC CIF (MSFC CIF)
Start date2026-06-01
End date2026-09-30

How to get involved

This is a mature technology (TRL 7+) — the realistic path in is usually NASA's Technology Transfer Program: licensing an existing NASA patent, or a Space Act Agreement to use NASA facilities/expertise directly. NASA also runs a startup licensing program with no upfront fee for companies formed to commercialize a specific NASA technology.

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