Aug 2021 - June 2022
The theme our group chose for this years NASA RASC-AL competition was that of Martian ISRU Water Architecture. The goal of this mission was to figure out a way to find and extract water-ice from the Martian subsurface, manufacture the drilled sediment into a propellant of our choice, and store the propellant at a capacity of 50 metric tons/year for future NASA missions.
Our solution to this problem was to use a plasma drill bit to mine through to a 1km depth of the Martian subsurface to reach a water-ice/regolith layer (80% regolith and 20% water-ice). The plasma bit pulses the water-ice and regolith mixture to a dirt-like substance, where we then vacuumed up the sediment to be manufactured at the "ROMANCE" system. A carbon scrubber with filters was also used to extract carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
As a group we chose methane and liquid oxygen as our propellant due to it's easy manufacturability on Mars, compared to other propellant types. In the manufacturing site, we used a series of processes including sublimation, electrolysis, and the Sabatier reaction. Sublimation was used to separate the water from the regolith after drilling, electrolysis was used to separate the water into hydrogen and oxygen gas, and the Sabatier reaction took in carbon dioxide and hydrogen gas to give out our methane (and water which was circulated back to electrolysis). The methane and liquid oxygen was then stored as our propellant to be ready for future missions.
The innovative ideas implemented in this project allowed us to be finalists and present at Cocoa Beach, Florida in front of a panel of industry professionals, and be honored with the "Brightest Idea" award.
Our solution to this problem was to use a plasma drill bit to mine through to a 1km depth of the Martian subsurface to reach a water-ice/regolith layer (80% regolith and 20% water-ice). The plasma bit pulses the water-ice and regolith mixture to a dirt-like substance, where we then vacuumed up the sediment to be manufactured at the "ROMANCE" system. A carbon scrubber with filters was also used to extract carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
As a group we chose methane and liquid oxygen as our propellant due to it's easy manufacturability on Mars, compared to other propellant types. In the manufacturing site, we used a series of processes including sublimation, electrolysis, and the Sabatier reaction. Sublimation was used to separate the water from the regolith after drilling, electrolysis was used to separate the water into hydrogen and oxygen gas, and the Sabatier reaction took in carbon dioxide and hydrogen gas to give out our methane (and water which was circulated back to electrolysis). The methane and liquid oxygen was then stored as our propellant to be ready for future missions.
The innovative ideas implemented in this project allowed us to be finalists and present at Cocoa Beach, Florida in front of a panel of industry professionals, and be honored with the "Brightest Idea" award.
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