The innovation paves the way for future astronauts to convert lunar soil into breathable air and rocket fuel.
. As part of these moon plans, NASA aims to harvest and use on-location resources, called in-situ resource utilization , to sustain missions indefinitely on the moon's surface.."This technology has the potential to produce several times its own weight in oxygen per year on the lunar surface, which will enable a sustained human presence and lunar economy," Paz said.
This has been done before, but not in a vacuum. Thanks to a new carbothermal reactor developed for NASA by Sierra Space, researchers were able to maintain a constant pressure within the reactor to prevent gases from escaping, while simultaneously allowing spent regolith material to pass in and out of the reaction area during the vacuum chamber test.
A high-powered laser and carbothermal reactor located inside the testing chamber of NASA's Carbothermal Reduction Demonstration at NASA's Johnson Space Center. "Our team proved the CaRD reactor would survive the lunar surface and successfully extract oxygen," said Anastasia Ford, NASA engineer and CaRD test director at JSC. The successful test certifies the technology at a level six on NASA's technicalscale, which means the technology is ready for an actual in space and is on track for use during NASA's Artemis missions.
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