Descrizione del progetto
Estrazione e purificazione dell’acqua lunare
Per vivere e lavorare nello spazio profondo, gli astronauti devono avere accesso all’acqua. Sebbene l’acqua possa essere inviata in orbita, gli scienziati sono alla ricerca di modi per generarla nello spazio. Il progetto LUWEX, finanziato dall’UE, progetterà e testerà un nuovo estrattore d’acqua per trattare la regolite lunare contenente ghiaccio idrico sufficiente a sostenere un processo di purificazione a valle. L’obiettivo del progetto è sviluppare un prototipo innovativo per l’estrazione, la purificazione e il monitoraggio della qualità dell’acqua. Nel caso dell’acqua, essa può essere facilmente immagazzinata e utilizzata direttamente come materiale di consumo per gli astronauti o elettrolizzata in idrogeno e ossigeno, una combinazione molto efficace di propellenti per razzi.
Obiettivo
Sustainable space exploration requires the development of In-Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU) technologies, which encompass all processes that utilize local resources to generate useful products for robotic and human exploration. Among the available resources, water is the most versatile and most needed in space exploration. Water can be easily stored and directly used as consumable for astronauts or electrolyzed to hydrogen and oxygen, a very effective rocket propellant combination. LUWEX aims to develop, integrate and validate lunar water extraction and purification technologies for in-situ propellant and consumables production for future space exploration missions. The consortium will develop key technologies for an in-situ raw water process chain, which include an innovative water extraction prototype, water purification technologies and water quality monitoring for application in a future European-led space exploration mission. An integrated test setup will be built to validate the operational capabilities of the technologies and also of the whole process chain. This setup will deliver a relatively realistic environment analogue to the lunar surface and will use a lunar dust-ice simulant to provide proper validation conditions to raise the TRL of all subsystems and the whole process chain to level 4. The interdisciplinary nature of LUWEX combines research and innovation in space engineering, space science and exploration, geophysics and terrestrial water systems. Large space industry (Thales Alenia Space), research organizations (DLR), SME (Liquifer Systems Group, Scanway) and academia (Technische Universität Braunschweig, Wroclaw University of Science and Technology) from four European countries (Germany, Italy, Austria, Poland) join forces in a unique consortium to enable breakthroughs in ISRU technologies. LUWEX will help to strengthen the excellence in European space science and exploration and also foster the competitiveness of the European space sector.
Campo scientifico
- natural sciencesphysical sciencesastronomyspace exploration
- engineering and technologymechanical engineeringvehicle engineeringaerospace engineering
- natural sciencesphysical sciencesastronomyplanetary sciencesplanetary geology
- engineering and technologyenvironmental engineeringwater treatment processes
Programma(i)
Meccanismo di finanziamento
HORIZON-AG - HORIZON Action Grant Budget-BasedCoordinatore
51147 Koln
Germania