Unlocking water and resources on the moon and asteroids will be a huge breakthrough for space development. It will give us water, building materials, and propellants. Water is the most critical component in the near-term and is therefore the focus of many studies. However, being able to mine other resources with the same system will …
Space Telescope Design That Will Be 400 Times Better at Finding Asteroids
NASA NIAC has an update on the Lunar Polar Mining Outpost (LPMO). It is a breakthrough mission architecture that promises to greatly reduce the cost of human exploration and industrialization of the Moon. The first invention, Sun Flower™ stems from a new insight into lunar topography. Multi-kilometer landing areas in lunar polar regions are likely …
Micrometeoroid bombardment has already broken most solid material in the upper part of the regolith into fine grains. This includes solid material of all compositions, including the ice, which is as hard as granite at PSR temperatures and is therefore essentially another type of rock. These ice grains are intermixed with all the other minerals, …
Florida researchers propose a new method, called Aqua Factorem, to extract lunar water. It will drastically reduce energy and complexity of lunar mining operations helping to establish this industry. Other methods to extract water from the regolith are based on phase change, pumping energy into the regolith to sublimate the ice into vapor, then capturing …
The Lunar Polar Mining Outpost (LPMO) (see quad chart graphic) is a breakthrough mission architecture that promises to greatly reduce the cost of human exploration and industrialization of the Moon. LPMO is based on two patent pending inventions that together solve the problem of affordable lunar polar ice mining for propellant production. The first invention, …
ULA had a vision for $2.7 trillion space industry by 2045 which would be an expansion by eight times from the $330 billion industry today. The accelerated pace of SpaceX launch vehicles will accelerate space mining, high-speed internet satellites and space-based solar power and the development of a massive space industry. SpaceX already has the …
Spacefab is currently building ther Waypoint space telescope with a 21 centimeter mirror. It is launching as a co-payload on a SpaceX rocket in 2019. This commercial telescope will have an image intensified ultraviolet and visible camera, and a 48 megapixel camera for visible and near-infrared imaging for astronomical and Earth observation purposes, available for …
Made In Space is putting 3D printing into space and is working on other space based manufacturing. They are looking to make large light structures as well. They call these systems Archinaut. It is an alternative approach to the Tether unlimited spiderfab. In November 2015, NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD) announced its selection of …