Nebula Public Library

The knowledge bank of ESA’s R&D programmes

Lunar ISRU Demonstration Mission Definition Study Segment 1

Programme
Discovery
Programme Reference
18_M-HRE-1C
Contractor
Space Applications
Start Date
End Date
Status
Closed
Country
Belgium
Lunar ISRU Demonstration Mission Definition Study Segment 1
Description

ALCHEMIST is a payload design created in order to produce water from lunar regolith so as to demonstrate the end-to-end process of hydrogen reduction of FeO on the lunar surface.

In this activity, an initial trade-space exploration took place to explicitly analyse the mission design trade-space provided by the customer and the baseline mission design to validate or replace it, as well as to indicate how the associated challenges it contains and identifies are addressed and reflected in the ALCHEMIST design. As a result, the team obtained a first iteration of a Payload Description Document, and a Payload Interface Definition.

Technology Domain
22 - Environmental Control & Life Support (ECLS) and In Situ Resource Utilisation (ISRU)
Competence Domain
6-Life & Physical Science Payloads, Life Support, Robotics & Automation
Keywords
Lunar Lander
Moon
ISRU
Instrument
Executive summary