• Journal of the Korean GEO-environmental Society
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• v.23 no.12
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• pp.41-53
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• 2022

After industrialization has been started, mankind needs and consumes more resources. Now, the resources depletion is a serious problem in the Earth. However, there are infinite resources in the Space. Especially, the Moon is the closest planet and has much resources, including Helium-3 and rare earths, which are needed to human being in the future. Humanity needs to reside on the moon to harvest these resources. For the resident, much resources, such as food, construction, and industrial materials, are needed. However, to transport these resources to the Moon from the Earth, an astronomical cost should be consumed. Thus, research is underway to support human activities by procuring resources locally. This is called In-Situ Resources Utilization (ISRU), which is the essential technology for the space development. In this paper, the reason why ISRU is essential and the its status are introduced and future research projects will be explained.

• Journal of Space Technology and Applications
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• v.3 no.3
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• pp.199-212
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• 2023

In contrast to the short-term nature of lunar missions in the past, lunar missions in new space era aim to extend the presence on the lunar surface and to use this capability for the Mars exploration. In order to realize extended human presence on the Moon, production and use of consumables and fuels required for the habitation and transportation using in-situ resources is an important prerequisite. The Global Exploration Roadmap presented by the International Space Exploration Coordination Group (ISECG), which reflects the space exploration plans of participating countries, shows the phases of progress from lunar surface exploration to Mars exploration and relates in-situ resource utilization (ISRU) capabilities to each phase. Based on the ISRU Gap Assessment Report from the ISECG, ISRU technology is categorized into in-situ propellant and consumable production, in-situ construction, in-space manufacturing, and related areas such as storage and utilization of products, power systems required for resource utilization. Among the lunar resources, leading countries have prioritized the utilization of ice water existing in the permanent shadow region near the lunar poles and the extraction of oxygen from the regolith, and are preparing to investigate the distribution of resources and ice water near the lunar south pole through unmanned landing missions. Resource utilization technologies such as producing hydrogen and oxygen from water by hydroelectrolysis and extracting oxygen from the lunar regolith are being developed and tested in relevant lunar surface analogue environments. It is also observed that each government emphasizes the use and development of the private sector capabilities for sustainable lunar surface exploration by purchasing lunar landing services and providing opportunities to participate in resource exploration and material extraction.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers
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• v.17 no.6
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• pp.120-130
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• 2013

A study was conducted for the performance characteristics of methane taking recently the limelight in the world as a next-generation propellant, with the survey for state of the art in the development of methane/oxygen rocket engine being accompanied. Liquid methane as a rocket fuel has the favorable characteristics such as non-toxic, low cost, regenerative cooling capability, and potential for in-situ resource utilization (ISRU). The combination of liquid methane and liquid oxygen also provides the excellent performance including high specific impulse and low system mass. For these reasons, many researches have been actively carried out on the methane/oxygen engine, nevertheless, its technology readiness level is not that high enough just yet. Therefore, it is judged that it is the time to mitigate the technical gap with the space technology of advanced countries through a swift onset of the development of methane rocket engine.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.33 no.5
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• pp.373-387
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• 2023

Scientific exploration of extraterrestrial planets has gripped human imagination since the advent of space travel. Human missions to Mars could produce insight into the essential questions of how, when and where life began on Earth. Such missions would only be feasible using local space resources materials, a concept called in situ-resource utilization (ISRU). The purpose of this paper is to provide a thorough review of the currently available Mars soil simulants and to determine those with geotechnical properties most appropriate for vehicle mobility studies. Sourcing and processing are considered since full-scale studies require bulk quantities of material on the order of tens of tons. This review identifies the simulants with the highest fidelity to Mars wind drift soils. In addition, recommendation guide for mars soil simulant development made.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.19 no.7
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• pp.144-152
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• 2018

Lunar exploration, which was led by the United States and the former Soviet Union, ceased in the 1970s. On the other hand, since massive lunar ice deposits and rare resources were found in 1990s, European Union, China, Japan, and India began to participate in lunar exploration to secure future lunar resource as well as to construct a lunar base. In the near future, it is expected that national space agencies and private industries will participate in the lunar exploration together. Their missions will include the exploration and sample return of lunar resources. Lunar resources have a close relationship with the lunar in-situ resource utilization (ISRU). To construct a lunar base, it is inevitable to bring huge amounts of resources from Earth. Water and oxygen, however, will need to be produced from local lunar resources and lunar terrain feature will need to be used to construct the lunar base. Therefore, in this paper, the global trends on lunar exploration and lunar construction technology are investigated and compared along with the ISRU technology to support human exploration and construct a lunar base on the Moon's surface.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.39 no.2
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• pp.327-333
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• 2019

For sustainable lunar exploration, the most required resources should be procured on site because it takes tremendous cost to transfer the resources from the Earth to the Moon. The technologies required for use of lunar resources refers to In-Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU). As the ISRU technology cannot be verified in the Earth, a lunar surface environment simulator is necessary to be prepared in advance. The Moon has no atmosphere, and the average temperature of the lunar surface reaches to $107^{\circ}C$ during the daytime and $-153^{\circ}C$ at night. The lunar surface is also covered with very fine soils with sharp particles that are electrostatically charged by solar radiation and solar wind. In this research, generation of vacuum environment with lunar soil mass in a chamber and simulation of electrostatically charged soils are taken into consideration. It was successful to make a vacuum environment of a chamber including lunar soils without soil disturbance by controlling evacuation rate of a vacuum chamber. And an experiment procedure for simulating the charged lunar soil was suggested by theoretical consideration in charging phenomena on lunar dust.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.37 no.2
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• pp.5-17
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• 2021

The Moon has been an attractive planet as an outpost for deep space exploration since He-3 and water ice which can be used as energy resources were discovered. In-Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU) construction material fabrication method is required for sustainable space planet exploration. In this paper, the possibility of microwave sintering technology for construction material fabrication was evaluated using lunar regolith that can be easily collected from the Moon surface. Experimental assessment of the influence factors on microwave sintering was conducted using a hybrid sintering system for efficient processing. The heat distribution in the furnace was observed using thermal paper that is coated with a material formulated to change color when exposed to heat. Based on this result, sintered cylindrical KLS-1s with a diameter of 1 cm and a height of 2 cm were fabricated. Densities were measured for the sintered KLS-1s under rotating turntable conditions that have an effect of microwave dispersion. The more dielectrics were arranged, the more microwaves were dispersed reducing the heat concentration, and thus a uniformity of sintered KLS-1s was enhanced.

• Advances in Computational Design
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• v.4 no.2
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• pp.141-153
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• 2019

This research is comprised of virtually simulating behavior while experiencing low gravity effects in advance of real world testing in low gravity aboard Zero Gravity Corporation's (Zero-G) research aircraft (727-200F). The experiment simulated a drill rig penetrating a regolith simulant. Regolith is a layer of loose, heterogeneous superficial deposits covering solid rock on surfaces of the Earth' moon, asteroids and Mars. The behavior and propagation of space debris when drilled in low gravity was tested through simulations and visualization in a leading dynamic simulation software as well as discrete element modeling software and in preparation for comparing to real world results from flying the experiment aboard Zero-G. The study of outer space regolith could lead to deeper scientific knowledge of extra-terrestrial surfaces, which could lead us to breakthroughs with respect to space mining or in-situ resource utilization (ISRU). These studies aimed to test and evaluate the drilling process in low to zero gravity environments and to determine static stress analysis on the drill when tested in low gravity environments. These tests and simulations were conducted by a team from Texas A&M University's Department of Construction Science, the United States Air Force Academy's Department of Astronautical Engineering, and Crow Industries

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.37 no.2
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• pp.507-512
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• 2017

For manned planetary exploration, human beings are developing technologies that can permanently reside on the planet, and the basic three elements of residence, such as clothing and shelter, are required to support essential technologies in construction. In order to develop infrastructure construction technology internationally, various materials and methods such as local cementation, sulfur and aluminum have been tried. in this study, a purpose is proposed a polymer concrete construction validation technology that appropriates the conditions required for manmade exploration in order to develop construction infrastructure material technology using polymer. Concrete specimens with a 10% weight ratio polymer prepared by heating on the bottom were stabilized after 2 hours of heating, and the strength was lower than the top heating method, but the solidifying speed was 2 times faster. These results are expected to be applicable not only to construction of lunar facilities for manned exploration but also to improve the construction of infrastructures such as roads and levees to prevent dust.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.46-58
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• 2010

Hydrogen peroxide(HP) and liquid methane have deserved renewed considerations as green propellants in recent years, because main design concerns in the development of the new generation propulsion system for spacecrafts are concentrated on low operation cost and environmental cleanness. Although HP has a long history of application to aerospace propulsion systems due to high density, mono-propellant characteristics and low toxicity, it had been replaced by hydrazine and liquid oxygen due to extreme performance requirement during the cold war. But HP has received a renewed interest due to its increased stability and many researches have been conducted to develop high performance LREs(Liquid Rocket Engines) using HP. Liquid methane has also received a new interest in rocket propulsion system for the future space exploration according to its possibility of ISRU(In-Situ Resource Utilization).