SUMMARY

In-Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU) will be required for a sustainable, economical lunar base. ISRU is an immense engineering challenge, characterized by low Technology Readiness Levels (TRL) due in part to the difficulty experimentally studying and modeling the physics of transport in the lunar environment. In this work, study on both gaseous transport within regolith and thermal transport is proposed to advance understanding of the underlying physics in the lunar environment. A better understanding of mass and thermal transport will lead to more realistic designs for Lunar ISRU technology. To study gas transport within regolith an experimental apparatus has been constructed that allows for study at lunar conditions. An appealing option for heat input for Lunar ISRU processing technology is solar thermal heat. A heat transfer model will be developed to capture solar thermal heat input to drive ISRU processing technology and model results will be compared to experiments. A heat transfer model will allow for different scenarios of ISRU to be quickly evaluated and designed. A candidate ISRU technology such as: the thermal extraction of volatiles and the thermochemical reduction of regolith will be studied. ISRU processing technology will be evaluated with the lunar regolith simulants LMS-1, LHS-1, and JSC-1A. The upward flow reactor (UFR) will be utilized to experimentally study regolith processing technology with solar thermal heat input. This project will advance the understanding of physics in the lunar environment, paving the way for realized Lunar ISRU.