Advanced Carbothermal Electric Reactor

ORBITEC proposes to develop the Advanced Carbothermal Electric (ACE) reactor to efficiently extract oxygen from lunar regolith. Unlike state-of-the-art carbothermal reactors that use concentrated solar energy or laser energy to heat the regolith, the ACE reactor uses new innovative electric resistant elements to heat the regolith. The ACE reactor eliminates the problems encountered with traditional carbothermal hot-wall reactors and offers significant advantages over current carbothermal reactor approaches. By eliminating the need for a solar energy collection and delivery system, the ACE reactor offers a significantly lowers system mass and eliminates the need to keep optical surfaces clean. The ACE reactor approach can also produce the processed regolith in a form that can be directly used as a structural material. This proposal directly meets the needs of Subtopic X3.01, specifically "Advanced reactor concepts for carbothermal reduction or molten oxide electrolysis." The proposed Phase 1 Effort will define requirements, develop the heating elements, perform performance tests in a sub-scale ACE reactor, and create a preliminary design for a prototype ACE reactor that would be built and tested in Phase 2. The Phase 2 Effort will include fabrication and performance testing of the prototype ACE reactor before it is delivered to NASA.

The development of ACE reactor is clearly focused on supporting the needs of the NASA lunar exploration program. However, there are several commercial companies making significant progress towards spaceflight, including Bigelow Aerospace, Scaled Composites, and Space-X. There are significant cost/propulsive savings associated with obtaining oxygen from the Moon versus bringing it from Earth, and systems have been proposed to use lunar oxygen to resupply vehicles anywhere from LEO down to the lunar surface. As commercial flight systems mature, the ACE reactor could provide an economical source of oxygen. In addition, the innovative electric resistance heaters developed for the ACE reactor could have a significant commercial market as the first high-temperature heating elements that can operate in oxidizing, reducing, or vacuum environments.

The purpose of ISRU is to harness and utilize resources at the site of exploration to create products and services which can enable and significantly reduce the mass, cost, and risk of near-term andlong-term space exploration. In particular, the ability to make propellants, life support consumables, fuel cell reagents, and radiation shielding can significantly reduce the cost, mass, and risk of sustained human activities beyond Earth. The ACE reactor will support this need by efficiently producing oxygen from the lunar regolith. The ACE reactor would be capable of satisfying oxygen requirements for EVA and life support in Exploration Surface Systems, and can be used to provide LOX for propulsion requirements in both Lunar and potential Mars missions. The ACE reactor could also produce the oxygen used in future architectures involving Earth-Lunar shuttles and orbital propellant depots.

This is early/mid-stage (TRL 4) — the most realistic path in is NASA SBIR/STTR, which funds small businesses and research institutions to develop technology aligned with NASA's needs (equity-free, phased funding). Check whether a current SBIR/STTR solicitation topic overlaps with this project's technology area, or contact the project directly (above) to ask.

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