Planetary Volatiles Extractor (PVEx) for In Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU)

In Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU) or “living off the land” relies on exploiting local resources and in turn reducing burden of transporting supplies. In a more conventional ISRU approach, feedstock is mined and transported to a processing plant. In this paper, we present alternative design that combines mining and extraction into one and eliminates transport step. We investigated three Planetary Volatiles Extraction (PVEx) methods: “Sniffer”, Mobile In Situ Water Extraction (MISWE), and Corer. All three approaches are drill based, which helps with material penetration and capture of volatiles. It was determined that the Sniffer approach does not work very well, because volatiles tend to escape up the soil and into the vacuum above. The MISWE came second in terms of water extraction efficiency and energy conversion efficiency. The Corer turned out to be the best approach. It also required less energy to drill than MISWE, rendering it a more efficient approach in terms of drilling.