Nebula Public Library

The ISRU-DM mission aims to perform the first demonstration of ISRU on the Moon, via the production of water or oxygen from raw lunar material (i.e. regolith, ice etc.) At Agency-level a phase-0 level study was also performed to understand the technical and programmatic feasibility of undertaking the ISRU-DM mission via the provision of commercial services from industry.

Global plans for exploratory missions aim at extending the distances travelled by humans well beyond low Earth orbit and establishing permanent bases on the surface of Moon and Mars [1]. This will inevitably lead to increasing mission duration, radiation intensity, gravity levels and degree of confinement and isolation to which the crews will be exposed. In this extended space mission context, the astronauts should have the means to collect medical/physiological data in order to understand if their physiological conditions are in nominal levels.

The objective of the APPS study has been to investigate the feasibility, architectural and system design, and potential performance of a non-nuclear system whose single goal is to provide survival and servicing support to a planetary payload element, in order to ensure its operations despite the absence of sunlight for extended periods. The principle aim is to advance concepts and overall approaches to meet this goal, and to provide a framework for the future development of key technologies.

The main goals of the DPEM project was [RD1] "to set the foundations for the development of a comprehensive suite of near surface dusty plasma environment models applicable in particular (but not only) to airless bodies of interest for future exploration missions such as asteroids, the Moon, Phobos and Deimos, etc … These models shall allow the definition of charged dust environment specifications to assess the effects of dusty plasmas on near surface or surface exploration units (spacecraft, payload, lander, astronaut) in a surface-spacecraft-dust environment system."