Heat Pipe Solar Receiver for Oxygen Production of Lunar Regolith, Phase I

This Small Business Innovative Research project by Advanced Cooling Technologies, Inc. (ACT) will develop an advanced high temperature heat pipe solar receiver that can be used for the production of oxygen from lunar regolith. ACT proposes a high temperature heat pipe solar receiver that can accept and and transfer the solar thermal energy to the lunar soil, thereby extracting oxygen. The heat pipe design will also be able to isothermalize the reactors, increasing the available area for soil evaporation, and consequently increasing the throughput and efficiency. The overall objective of the Phase I and II programs is to develop a heat pipe solar receiver for the production of oxygen from regolith. In Phase I, the principal objectives are to design the receiver, and fabricate and test a representative heat pipe under simulated conditions. The Phase II program will fabricate and test the full scale heat pipe solar receiver.

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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